


Moving in Stereo

by FeatherQuill



Category: The Hobbit RPF
Genre: Anal Sex, Background Relationships, Cars, Children, Coming Out, Divorce, M/M, Top Lee, Top Richard
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-28
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2018-05-16 20:07:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 33,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5839237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeatherQuill/pseuds/FeatherQuill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Richard is a teacher, married and has two lovely children. The problem he has? There is that lovely Mechanic from down the street he just can´t get his eyes off.  So, yeah - life gets a whole more complicated and the way Lee looks at him doesn´t make it easier at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there :) So, this idea just came to me (like most ideas) In the dead of night and refused to leave off. Actually I had planned this as a One-shot but alas, my muse, that frilly little thing just can´t let it be. And my friends for that matter, plant very interesting ideas into that head of mine. So here we are - I would love comments and if you like it you could also leave kudos. Or just let me know what you think :) <3

He doesn´t know why or how exactly, but he feels like crying. No, scratch that, he feels like crying because his whole life just came crashing down around him and he can´t even get it into words. Richard Armitage , people would say – beloved teacher, a little anti social maybe but other than that a man that knew what he was doing. A wonderful father of two. Another sob threatens to rise in his throat and he can´t blame the poor man staring at him from behind the counter at all.

He doesn´t say anything, just comes around and hands Richard a tissue, mouth a tin line and Richard knows exactly that Lee wants to say something but doesn´t dare at the moment – that he blames himself for all of it even if it is complete bullshit. Lee isn´t the One that married because he had felt like as if that was the right thing to do and he also hadn´t been the One to father two kids with someone he liked but didn´t love – never had loved in the first place like he should have done – well, that was shit, too. 

“Rich.”

Lee says with sad eyes, grease stains on his Overall and brow knitted into a frown. 

“Tell me what happened.”

And Richard, man of many words, looks at him through bleary eyes, throat aching, shakes his head as if to clear his thoughts away, get his life of his shoulders once and for all. 

“You.”

He tries for a joke but he knows that it falls awfully flat. Lee just nods and gets out two bottles of beer, places them back in the fridge and reaches for the Whiskey instead.  
_  
It had started on the day his niece had turned Eighteen and his idiotic brother had decided that it would be time to gift her a car. Not a used one, no – a bright and flashy Pink Beetle that he had customized for his little Princess. At that Richard had given a snort but hadn´t said anything and gone to pick up the car, eyes huge and instantly drawn to the Mechanic. He knew how it was with kids, had two of his own – but still, there was something inside him, something he hadn´t dared to dwell on until his wife had looked at him in the kitchen one evening, the glass of wine in her hand and her eyes fixed on his own._

_They had known each other since they were in school and after the first child had been born they had decided to move to America because Richard had accepted a teaching position that would guarantee them a better life. At least that was what he had told his parents and she her own, but they both knew it was a lie. In capital letters. They didn´t share a bed, didn´t even kiss anymore. It wasn´t out of lack of affection , or that they hated each other. They were friends – and therein lay the rub.  
They were friends and nothing more. _

_“Richard.”_

_She had said, gray eyes fixated on his own blue ones, fingers tapping on the dining table he hated so much._

_“I think it is time for us to face the facts, isn´t it?”_

_Her voice had been soft and calm. Like she was stating a fact and maybe, she was._

_“Facts?”_

_He hadn´t recognized his own voice for it had sounded meek and afraid but he had at least looked at her, thankful that the children were already in bed._

_“Yes.”_

_She had said, trying her best to look like she didn´t care and hadn´t needed the wine to work up the nerve to tell him this things._

_“I have seen the way you look at him.”_

_He had nearly choked on his own wine but she didn´t even blink, waiting patiently for him to stop coughing._

_“And what it is you want of me?”_

_Still he couldn´t belief that he talked like that, so unsure of what to do or say, how to act._

_“I want you to be happy and we both know, it isn´t in this house, don´t we.”_

__

“So.”

Lee says drawn out , fingers around the beer bottle a little tighter than he had intended. 

“So you came here, because she told you to? Your _wife_ told you to?”

He felt the anger rise in his chest, had known that there was something off with Richard, despite the fact that he had worn a tweet jacket and a blush brighter than a strawberry the first time they had met. In that moment he had felt two things – instant attraction and a warning bell going off in the back of his mind, just a feeling he hadn´t been able to place. Sometimes he was a little slow – his father had told him that numerous times throughout his life but not as fondly as his mother had used to and when they got divorced there hadn´t been a point for him to stay in the home he had grown up in with a bitter old man any longer. 

His father hadn´t said a thing as he had packed up – three bags and an old car he had fixed up himself, ten grand all he had owned at the time. There was the feeling and hope of something new on his mind when he had set Sail to New York three years prior and now he owned a Garage of his own that made just enough money that he could come by. He was happy. Not dancing through the City but happy none the less – and he knew what he wanted. That had been something that he been passed on from his father to him and he although he seldom admitted to it, he was proud of it. 

When Richard had come in to collect the hideous Pink Beetle he had known that there was attraction. Mutual at that and it hadn´t taken much more than an hour of talking about this and that for him to know that he wanted more than talk, having the sudden urge to make this something more, something he had been chasing between One Night stands and relationships that had left him wondering if he had been sober when he had made his decisions. 

“No. Not – it´s not like that. It´s.. complicated.”

Richard shrinks back under the gaze Lee throws him and honestly he cannot blame him. He would be mad, too – if he had been in Lee´s position. The bad thing was, he wasn´t. He was the guy that had banged the Mechanic that had flirted with him after discussing lively about Movies and Shakespeare against a locker in the back of the Garage. God, how stupid he felt now. He half expects Lee to hit him with a wrench or something, but he doesn´t. 

“Complicated, fuck yeah. You could say that. Question is, what is it you want to do now?”

Truth to be told, when Lee had found out that Richard had lied to him about the whole family thing it had been the moment he had contemplated to throw a fit but he just wasn´t that kind of guy, never had been. 

“Uh...Dinner.”

Lee just raises an eyebrow at that and Richard flushes a shade of red that isn´t really healthy before clearing his throat. 

“Just the two of us? At a place nobody sees us, I mean?”

Richard stops him with a hand on his chest before shaking his head, trying to get a grip on himself. 

“No. I..I would very much for you to come to..”

Lee lets him stutter until he realizes that not One good sentence will come out of it and sighs. 

“When should I be there?”

He asks instead and ponders why on earth he even bothers, but then again he knows.


	2. Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And on we go :) I don´t know where this will lead, but it will go on a bit (so much for my muse and it being easy) Thank you for the feedback so far and I hope you enjoy <3

Lee never thought that he would be the One caught inside the live version of a soap opera, but apparently life has it out for him again and he chuckles when he is alone at his place. He never would have started this if he had known – well, maybe that was a lie, he admits while looking into the bathroom mirror and shaving off his stubble. He also never thought it might get him an invitation to dinner of all things after things came to light – had gotten ugly. Not between them, really – but the people just looked and whispered. He had known then.

Dinner is a thing he just doesn´t do – like he doesn´t do domestic life and all that comes with it – not because he doesn´t want to – but he feels like he is not cut out for it, not made for a house with a garden and children running around the kitchen having food fights. Not because he preferred men – god he scoffed at that for he sounded like his own father in head and boy, if that wasn´t a downer. They didn´t really hate each other, they just stopped talking and he didn´t even bother to write a Christmas Card anymore.

“What the hell did you get yourself into, Pace?”

He asks his reflection while he dries off his face, looks down at himself and then to the door where a long sleeved shirt hangs with his best and only suit. His gaze wanders to the large tribal that snakes over his arm down to his wrist and he chuckles when he remembers that his grandmother had tried to wipe it off after he came home with it – no, he wasn´t a saint but he also wasn´t a liar. Brutal honesty, that was more like it and all he had ever learned and practiced. That left him now – well – in between places. He was partly pissed at Richard and partly he wanted the man in his life, no matter what – and suddenly he remembers One night after his sixteenth birthday, sitting with his mother in the attic and crying.

_”Lee? Honey, dinner is ready – what..”_

_She had stopped in her tracks then, halfway up the stairs and rooted to the spot. He had known full well what kind of picture he painted, sitting there with bruised knuckles and split lip, visibly trembling._

_“You got into a fight.”_

_She hadn´t judged him, hadn´t said a thing or added the slightly unspoken again that hung between them._

_“Yeah.”_

_His voice had sounded meek and angry at the same time, including a pathetic sniffle because the world had been so fucking unfair and yet it hadn´t started to turn as had been his firm belief._

_“Was it that guy from the basketball team again?”_

_Well, at least she cared, he had thought bitterly, trying to get his anger under control, which hadn´t been easy for a teenage boy. His father had said nothing, just looked at him over the rim of his glasses when he had thrown his backpack into the next corner and stormed up to the attic._

_“Yeah.”_

_The sigh that was thrown his way hadn´t been something new to him , he had known it his entire life and it had held many meanings and sometimes none at all._

_“Well, I hope you aren´t suspended for the next match, it would disappoint your father, honey. He likes seeing you play.”  
At that he had looked at her, now closer, inspecting his face for more damage than a split lip and finding none. He didn´t know why but back then he had thrown his head back and laughed – it hadn´t been fair to her, to lash out like that but like always she had said nothing and he hadn´t pointed out that his father wasn´t interested in his games but liked to keep up appearances – he wasn´t that much of an idiot. _

_“Yeah about that – I am not on the team anymore. Something about the coach not wanting to upset the team or some shit.”_

_Her eyebrow had raised and the ache in his jaw intensified._

_“How on earth did you that, according the coach?”_

_The calmness in her voice had made him snap, face an angry red, fingers clutched over the ice box he was sitting on._

_“Eric and me fucked under the bleachers, okay? Are you happy now?”_

_It had been the first and last time in his life she had slapped him and send him to his room. He had been able to hear them argue from downstairs later and the next day she had marched into school, her entire frame shaking while she confronted the man all that was about while he had waited outside his office. He had never heard his mother curse like that again, either. The next month he had been pulled out of school and they had never spoken of it until One day she softly told him about the divorce._

_“You know that I love you honey, right?”_

_It had been a question about so much that he had only nodded. He knew, though that hadn´t helped him anyways_

__

He comes back to the present with images of his mother still dancing in front of his eyes and he hates himself a little for not being able to put his feelings into words most of the time before he focuses on the task at hand.   
His hands aren´t shaking when he fixes the last button on his jacket and he is glad for once that his father wanted him to know how to bind a tie.

“Come on then, you can do this.”

For a moment he thinks of how idiotic it seems that he is still talking to his reflection and that he will be late if he doesn´t get his ass in gear. With a curse he grabs his keys and all but flees to his car, banging his head on the hood once he realizes that he has completely forgotten the bottle of wine he had bought. 

“I might not know much about cars, but aren´t you supposed to drive them with your hands and feet?”

If anyone will ask him, he will deny that he jumps a foot in the air, letting out what is close to a squeak before whirling around and staring at Richard who manages to look at the floor very hard once the moment of surprise is over-

“You look lovely.”

He says and Lee closes his eyes, rakes a hand through his hair before combing it back messily, cursing inwardly. 

“Don´t do that.”

He warns the older man in a low voice, praying it will stop there and hoping it won´t. 

“And..and if I wanted to? If I can´t help it and wanted to see you before you can think of me as the worst man on this planet?”

He knows that there shouldn´t be humor in it but his mouth twitches anyway and he shakes his head, sighing so much like his mother that he can´t help the chuckle from escaping his mouth any longer.   
It must have taken Richard a lot of coming to his place – not that it was the first time and that still sits bitter with him, still hurts a bit. Richard is on foot, he notices and he also knows that Richard doesn´t really live far away – he had just not known that Richard had a family with him. Well, he hadn´t really cared for the inner décor of the house at the point they had made it up the stairs. 

He catches himself quickly. 

“First of all - you aren´t. Secondly, you don´t criticize my choice of wine for spooking me. The wine that is still upstairs, god I such a klutz.”

Richard laughs for the first time in ages it seems but says nothing and follows him when he gets back to the front door fumbling for his keys and then only he stops. 

“Or do you want me to wait here? I mean I came by unexpected and I understand really..”

At that he rolls his eyes and nods towards the other man to follow him inside. It is cold after all.   
Richard stands in the hallway a little lost and he barely refrains from doing math in his head because there are many things he wants and why does it take Lee so long to find a simple bottle. There is a curse and a muffled shout that have him move into the kitchen where Lee is sucking on his bleeding fingers, the bottle of wine in shreds on the floor by his feet. Miraculously there aren´t stains on his shirt.

“Let me help you with that.”

Richard offers and before Lee can protest the older man is scrambling at his feet, drying his best to clean the mess he didn´t even make up. Something in that makes him grit his teeth and he wants to stop Richard, only succeeding in banging their heads together. 

“Bloody Hell.”

Richard says and rubs his head before glaring at Lee a moment and taking a step closer. 

“Let me see.”

Scratch him not being dumb – he doesn´t have a clue what the Brit wants of him until his fingers are gripped and inspected by keen eyes. 

“Good, you´ll live. Now your tie. It´s a little askew.”

Maybe Richard doesn´t even realize how close they stand when he fixes Lees tie but when he looks up his eyes are nearly black in the dim light coming in from the window.

“We should go. After all there is still dinner, right?”

Instead of saying something Richard just nods and walks stiffly out into the world without really knowing what will happen next.

“You look lovely yourself.”

Lee says quietly, knowing he shouldn´t have said anything but then Richards lashes flutter and he can´t help himself, lifts his chin.

“What are we doing?”

He more or less asks himself before Richard grabs him by the lapels of his jacket and pushes him until his back hits the wall of the house, smashing their lips together in a desperate and glorious kiss. They shouldn´t be doing this -shouldn´t have done a lot of things but he guesses that they are so far behind the point of no return anyway that nobody would be surprised. 

“Oh God Lee I am -”

Lee interrupts him before he can finish.

“If you say you are sorry, I am going to punch you, even if I break my hand, I swear Richard.”

Richard looks at the floor again but then his gazes wanders up, stays focused. 

“I am not sorry. I may be a fool but I am not sorry. Not anymore and not about that. But you are right, we should go. I brought the kids to a friends house.”

Lee doesn´t say anything to that but he squeezes Richards hand and Richard smiles at him, small and honest. That has to be enough for now.


	3. Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And on our journey goes :) As always enjoy and let me know what you think <3

Lee ponders for a moment what to say, what to do – if it would be a little over the top to fall to his knees and say how sorry he is, that he hadn´t known , but then it would be a lie, something he   
doesn´t even feel. What he feels, well there are many things going through his head and he feels like he can´t get out of his mouth. She opens the door when she sees them approaching and for a long second he expects her to slap him, to scream and make a great scene for all the world to see – especially since he has his hand without meaning to on the small of Richards back, fingers stroking in what he hopes is a soothing matter. Richard on the other hand looks like he is ready to faint and flinches away for second. It makes something inside Lee hurt and it must have shown on his face because Richard just looks at him like someone who is deeply apologetic but can´t help themselves. 

“You must be Lee.”

She says with a polite smile that Lee tries to return but fails because he is a nervous wreck. She is unfazed, shakes his hand and continues 

“I´ve heard so much about you.”

And you have also seen much more of me than I care to admit , he thinks and there is nervous laughter he just can´t keep inside any longer as his hilarious mind supplies images of their first meeting, if you´d call it that. That first real meeting and not glances from around shelves in the supermarket while hunting down groceries.

_  
“Coming for another Pink Beetle?”_

_Richard clears his throat, trying his best to get his nerves together. He knows the man – not only from the workshop but also from seeing him around a couple of times and on one of those lovely occasions on a particular hot day the man now staring at him had cursed as a teenager had barreled into him while he had been trying to drink something that looked liked it was way to sweet even for grown up people in a bright red color. Said beverage had been spilled onto a pristine white shirt, now forever ruined and that shirt had been dumped into the nearest trash bin. And Richard? He was left to stare, completely ignoring the horde of children at his heels he accompanied on a field trip._

_“No, I ..ah, the car is fine.”  
Lee, as the tag the man is wearing helpfully supplies just grins at him and winks. For the love of god, he winks and Richard thinks just how much of a schoolgirl he is channeling inside himself as the man comes close enough so he is able to smell his aftershave, wiping his hands on a rag. _

_“So, what can I do for you?”_

_Richard blinks at that, wondering if he should just resign from his teaching position if all he can do is garble something instead of stringing words together into sentences._

_“Richard. My name is Richard.”_

_He hears himself say and he tries not to swallow and also he wishes or the ground to open up and swallow him whole, because, really he has no reason to be there. He doesn´t even own a car that needs repairing. Lee, from the looks of it knows exactly what they are talking about from the way he looks down over his nose, eyebrows raised and lips thin._

_“Well then Richard, I´ll see you around. If you can remember why you came here, that is.”_

_Richard doesn´t say anything to that, doesn´t even flinch as much as the words might sting anyway but instead he just grabs Lee by the shoulder and pushes him against the nearest surface, which ironically enough is a workbench. They manage to sidestep it and Lee just looks at him, licking his lips and opening his belt so fast he should feel ashamed but doesn´t because he is a guy that hadn´t gotten laid in the last half a year as much as he would have liked._

_“Wait.”_

_Richard manages to croak and yet again Lee wants to protest but Richard just tucks him into the general direction of the locker rooms and Lee just grins at him._

_“Why, aren´t you the kinky One? And here I would have tagged you as someone whose life goal..”_

_He is shut up with a harsh an bruising kiss, something that is far from romantic but they both need it, or it seems like that at least when Richard reaches for his Overall, all but tearing down the straps like he had wanted to do since the first time he had laid eyes on the man but never had felt it was the right moment. He isn´t sure if it is now but the little gasp Lee lets escape boosts his courage and lets him push the man again the nearest locker until he hits his head._

_“Sorry.”_

_He manages to wheeze and Lee laughs while trying to think straight, which in itself is feast with your pants around your ankles._

_“Fuck being Sorry.”_

_Lee grits out between clenched teeth, erection painfully hard and bobbing against his stomach and boy, would he have made a joke about all of it if Richard wouldn´t have just sunken onto his knees and sucked in him like a pro. Every joke dies in his throat at that moment, fingers digging into Richards scalp.  
It doesn´t take long until he is close to coming, trembling all over, thighs shaking. He can feel Richard shaking so much that he pulls the other man up and begins to kiss him, harsh little bites and fingers mapping skin. They shouldn´t be doing this, they aren´t teenagers but the way the older man looks at him, well fuck.   
“Lee.”_

_It´s the first time he hears his name said like that in a while and for a moment he wonders where this might lead until a woman comes into the shop and they hastily scramble into their clothing._

_“Tell you what, why don´t you swing by tonight.”_

_He asks and there is something off about Richard but after a moment the expression is gone and whatever is wrong with Richard isn´t there anymore._

_“Yeah, you..uh.. want me to bring wine or something?”_

_The woman calls for him again, or for Service and isn´t that just hilarious because all his thoughts, well they aren´t focused on cars right now._

_“A strip of condoms would be nicer.”_

_Richard flushes purple, presses a last kiss onto his lips and nods._

__

“So, Richard tells me you are good with cars.”

At least she tries, Lee has to admit, trying his best not to think too much about the time he met her after Richard and him had just -well – been intimate. Not that he had known that it was her at that point. He shrugs awkwardly. 

“It´s a passion of mine.”

He says around a bite of his dinner – she made them lasagna and it all seems so normal until she takes a sip of her wine and asks. 

“Like Richard?”

Richard chokes on his bite but Lee is unfazed. 

“No. Richard is..well, special to me. You can´t compare that to cars, now can you.”

She looks at him like she wants to murder him.

“No, you can´t.”

Her voice doesn´t rise and her eyes don´t water. She isn´t a cold person per se, Richard knows that but the next sentence, it is worse than any slap he might have received for his actions.

“May that be as it,I already told the children that their father is staying with a friend for a few days, I hope you don´t mind.”  
It´s then that he notices the duffle bag in the far corner of the kitchen and he wants to run from it all, curse that he ever met Richard, that they didn´t stop even after he knew but there is still that little voice in his head that sounds so hopeful, painting pictures of a future he desperately wants with someone like Richard.

“I don´t, as long as you like to ..come, you are welcome Richard.”

God, he should shut up, but Richard doesn´t even register the bite he has in his voice nor the sarcasm that is now like a permanent unpleasant stench in the room now.   
“No, I ..what..”

Lee doesn´t say anything for a while. Nobody does. He tries to cling to facts. Tries desperately not to let the things that will spread like a wildfire through the neighbourhood. In silence he already plans to move away but that wouldn´t be fair and he _likes_ Richard. Maybe there is even more there but he has learned a long time ago not to have too much hopes or expectations. 

“Well, I ...you have to understand.”

She says instead and looks at her plate. Richard gets a grip on himself much sooner than Lee expects.

“I do understand, yes.”

They leave soon after and Lee doesn´t even try to stop himself from grabbing a smoke as soon as they reach his house again. He also doesn´t comment once Richard grabs for a cigarette himself, clutching the bag in his arms like a lifeline. 

“I am sorry.”

Richard says again and Lee rolls his eyes while fumbling with the keys. 

“Are you now?”

And Richard, closing his tired eyes, shakes his head while moving straight to the bedroom, disposing his bag there. For a long and painful moment he stares at the wallpaper he is familiar with and then he looks at Lee and starts to weep. Lee thinks it is time he breaks out the Whiskey he has hidden somewhere but instead he draws Richard into a hug. He is not good at those things but he knows they both must try, for whatever reason. Whatever this is.


	4. Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As always, enjoy - also - yeah , Porn :D

Richard seems so lost that it nearly breaks Lees heart when he sees him puttering around the bathroom and put things away with trembling hands. His wallet falls out of his breast pocket and lands open on the tiled floor. For a moment Lee wonders why Richard stares at it if it might bite but then he sees the picture of small faces that look so much like Richard himself that he feels guilt gnawing away at him anew but he tramples it down, because there are always two people in that sort of game and he doesn´t want to be the One to be blamed for everything. _Again_ , the little voice in his head supplies unhelpfully and he sighs, picking up the wallet and holding it out to Richard who still looks like he has seen a ghost. 

“Thank you.”

It sounds timid and thin, not much like the voice he is used to from the other man and it makes him take a step closer, before turning around and trying to give the man some space, because he has been through a lot already. 

“Lee?”

The sound of his name makes him stop in the doorway and turn around again, eyebrow raised and lips pursed in a frown.

“Yes?”

He replies and wants to smash his head against something that will leave a bruise because, really what kind of conversation is that? Is is one at all? He doesn´t know and he still wears the damn suit he hates and fiddles with his tie just to do something. 

“Did you mean it?” 

No, not really a conversation, because it doesn´t make fucking sense. Not much does anymore to begin with. He takes a shallow breath, raking a hand through his hair and messing it up until there is a warm hand on his shoulder, nearly burning the skin under the unloved fabric he is still wearing.  
Richard is referring to his slip of tongue, something he hadn´t even intentionally said but it was out in the world none the less and it would be idiotic to take it back or to pretend that he hadn´t let it slide. Yes, he cared about Richard, to his own surprise he really did and that also was part of the problem.

“What exactly?”

He needs time, a little bit at least, wants to see Richard take a step forward. The older man just huffs out a breath, moves around him and licks his lips. There is something between them ,something that is charged and electric and something different that neither of them has laid a finger on yet. The flush in Richards cheeks is a telltale sign of his arousal and also the uncertainty he still feels. Lee doesn´t blame him for that but he also is only flesh and blood. 

“That you care for me.”

It comes out so silent that Lee has to strain to hear it. With a sigh he lifts Richards chin which has dropped at the whispered line. 

“Yes. I do.”

He expects much but not the smile which blooms on the older mans face, nor that he steps closer and wraps him in a hug before pressing a chaste kiss to his cheek, holding him close. He is still is far from tense and yet again Lee doesn´t blame him for it, instead opting for holding him close. The laughter startles him and he pulls away for a moment to observe Richard who is, yeah – really laughing. 

“What is so funny?”

Lee wants to know, because there isn´t much too laugh about in his opinion and hopefully Richard hasn´t gone off to the deep end. 

“Nothing, it´s just. I should have known. You even wear something you hate and went with me to my soon to be ex-wife. I just should have known.”

He is still laughing but it is a sound that frees him and that makes the corners of Lees mouth twitch before he can help it.  
“Maybe. Tell you what. Why don´t you get comfortable.”

Richard freezes in the exact moment Lee does at the choice of words. 

__

_“So , you really came.”_

_Lee is still in awe and looking at the blushing man at his front door. Not that he complains, because Richard is gorgeous and he wants to take what he can and maybe, if he admits it to himself, he wants more than just a quick fuck. Well, they have been past that, he muses with a feral grin._

_“Don´t you ever wear anything decent?”_

_That makes Lee frown and he looks down at himself. Decent, no, that isn´t his thing but he is at home and wearing sweatpants that ride low on his hips. The gaze of the other man is trained directly at his waist and he grins even broader, feeling his face ache from smiling._

_“Did you come here for decent?”_

_Richard just toes of his shoes and narrows his eyes before pressing Lee into his doorway, pushing until his back hits a wall._

_“No.”_

_He says between kisses and places a bite on Lees collarbone that makes him bite back the witty retort that had been forming in the back of his mind and gasp when Richard, who seemingly is so shy mouths his tattoo, maps it with his tongue and grins up at him. That is not what Lee wants tonight and he tells that Richard in gestures, pulls him up and into the bedroom. Richard gladly follows, slightly dizzy and flushed but Lee feels much the same so it is okay, he muses while he pushes Richard onto the bed._

_“Why don´t you get comfortable?”_

_He teases, before slinking off to the bathroom_

__

“Rich.”

Richard blinks at him, eyes misty at the memory and what followed before he wets his lips again and tries to look away but this time Lee moves in and presses a kiss on his lips, fingers latching onto fabric and pulling, pushing every which way, because he just can´t help it. They should talk, take their time but then Richard moans in the back of his throat, something that comes out like Lees name and strays off into something like a shout when Lee palms him through his pants, fumbles with the zipper and sinks onto his knees. It´s kind of a reverse from that particular night when he is pulled up to his feet again and clothes are shed in a haste. 

He doesn´t even register it until they are both stark naked and Richard pushes him to the mattress of his own bed, climbs atop him and stares down into his own pillows with a look upon his face that is nearly ravenous. A finger is put upon his lips, silencing him and signaling that the time to talk is over or not now. He doesn´t really care once Richard grinds his hips down, wrangling a shout from him and moving down until his head between his spread legs. He shivers in anticipation when Richard licks his lips again, smirks and licks over his hole, making his eyes roll back into his head. There were many things he had expected but not that. Not that he complains when Richards tongue opens him up hesitantly and without much ease, but the pleasure is much the same. There are fingers ghosting over the ticklish skin of his thighs and the giggle he feels rising in his throat only dies down once a spit slicked finger joins the tongue coaxing all those sounds from him. 

“Rich.”

He tries again but yet again Richard shushes him, grabbing for condoms and lube, sliding in on one certain stroke and sounding like he is dying – well Lee can relate, they haven´t done that often and normally he isn´t really the guy to bottom. Richard notices in that keen way of his, presses their foreheads together and pants against his lips, kissing moisture away that has traitorously gathered at the corner of Lees eyes. 

“Did I hurt you?”

He asks between pants, not really able to focus on anything but his pleasure or the movement of his hips that is slowly increasing but Lee just shakes his head, pulls Richard closer until he can wrap his ankles around the other mans waist, heels digging into his skin. 

“Good.”

Richard manages and Lee steals a kiss or a dozen, throwing his head back when Richards changes angles, making his vision whiten out and his mouth drop open the moment before his fingers clutch at Richards shoulders. He is gone so much that he yet again nearly misses it when Richards voice drifts to him.

“I love you, I love you so much, darling.”

His eyes widen when he realizes at the same moment as Richard that they have crossed yet another line and that there is no turning back this time. For a long moment after once Richard also has slipped out and gathered a washcloth to do something, like cleaning the mess they made, he sits up and stares at Richard from below lowered lids. 

“Did you mean it?”

He half expects Richard to chicken out, to ask what he talks about but Richard just crawls into bed beside him, fingers brushing his scalp. 

“Yes.”


	5. Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is drama, and kids. And a gross amount of fluff.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the feedback so far <3 As always , enjoy *goes to update other stuff*

The people start to talk soon enough. It is not out of the ordinary and it doesn´t surprise Lee in the slightest. He also highly doubts that Richard is surprised when heads start turning as he leaves the house on his way to work. There is for example that old lady cradling her dog and standing on the street across. She doesn´t say anything, she just stares accusingly and holds the poor dog closer before she shakes her head. Lee has half in mind to flip her off but Richard just grabs him by his shoulders, turns him that they are facing each other, noses brushing. 

Lee closes his eyes for a brief moment, tries to digest it all and not give in the sudden and urgent need to cry once Richard just smiles. Two weeks, that seems like a lifetime for him at the moment and maybe, the little sarcastic portion of his brain supplies helpfully, maybe it is. Maybe this is the time to tear down every wall and move on, away, settle down somewhere. A hysteric laugh wants to bubble up in his throat when the sudden images of them living somewhere in a hut and frolicking there flashes by his inner eye. Richard just shakes his head and draws him in for a gentle but firm kiss that grounds him and god, he needs grounding at the moment. 

_  
The morning after Richard tells him that he loves him, really loves him – well he has a hard time believing it. It is part of his nature not to fall for this kind of trick, despite it not being a trick at all and him only being a very complicated man. Not that he ever would admit to it. He tosses and turns, stares at Richards sleeping form and just watching the other man take even and steady breaths. He manages to sleep past the sunrise before he can´t take it anymore even if it is the weekend. He feels his nerve jump at every creak of a floorboard, head hammering – and not from booze._

_There are just so many thoughts running through his head at the moment that it isn´t even funny anymore, nor was it to begin with. He never thought to be the person thinking of finally clearing the unused spare room for kids that aren´t his own - and what a father he would make? He snorts into his cooling cup of coffee when he hears Richard pat down the stairs and to him._

_“You think so loud that One can´t sleep and it´s Saturday, love.”_

_Lee just shrugs and lights a cigarette, not commenting on the fact that is impossible to hear someone think. At least he hopes that and startles only a bit when a pair of arms snakes around his shoulders._

_“I admit to it, I lied but I smelt coffee and since I am not used to it, I thought the house is on fire and panicked a bit.”_

_That is something so silly that Lee turns around, cigarette forgotten in the ashtray and laughs._

_“You´re something else. Really, you are.”_

_He means it in the fondest of ways and Richard seems to understand it well enough when he places an almost chase kiss on his forehead, sliding into his lap like he never has done something else in his life._

_“Really? And what about breakfast then.”_

_That thought makes Lee groan, remembering that he hasn´t been grocery shopping. He was horrible at something like that but still he makes the effort to stand once Richard has slid off his lap and stares into the fridge for almost five minutes. He can´t see Richard titter behind him but he feels it against his neck._

_“Well.”_

_Lee manages after a moment that he needs to compose himself before closing the fridge and turning to lean against it._

_“It is milk or mustard.”_

_Richard just stares at him for a long silent moment, narrows his eyes and snatches a notepad from the table, scribbling something onto it that to Lees horror turns out to be a shopping list.  
“That is not a breakfast. That isn´t even milk there. The bloody thing starts to walk any minute from the looks of it.”_

_He says nothing, lets Richard ramble and wonders what the hell is going on. Theoretically he knows what is going on , even if Richard himself doesn´t realize it. They might need to sit down and have a talk about those sort of things, he muses when the older man turns around, pressing a piece of paper into his hands._

_“Now, since I have to grade papers I really don´t want to be grading you do the shopping. Now, get dressed and..”_

_Oh, he finally catches on, blush rising on his cheeks ._

_“If you want to , that is.”_

_It is lame, Richard knows that much and looks at Lee from under his lashes, who just cradles the piece of paper like a treasure for one silly moment._

_“I do. “_

_It´s an answer that doesn´t only concern the shopping, he knows that much and blinks before the moisture in his eyes can spill over and Richard just coughs, patting him awkwardly on the shoulder.  
Throwing on clothes hastily and nearly forgetting his keys and wallet on the way out, he takes a breath, staring at the innocent piece of paper. There are things on that list he never would buy for himself, things kids like, he realizes when standing in front of the shelf in the supermarket and staring at colorful packages of cornflakes, neatly lined up for row upon row. He is so concentrated on deciding which to take that he all but squeals when a small hand touches his forearm.   
Not any small hand - naturally it has to be hers. _

_She doesn´t say a word to him at first, just tries to be polite and freezes. He wonders what it is that has her so shocked, if there is something on his face, a hickey on his shoulder perhaps but he is wearing something with long sleeves. His eyes slip shut when it hits him what he is wearing. In his haste he must have grabbed Richards sweater and not his own. She gets her bearings quickly, that he has to admit._

_“The children like those. The One with the monkey. Richard likes them , too.”_

_She says it so casual that he wants to murder her but instead he throws the carton in his cart and grips it´s handle a little to hard._

_“Look. I know this isn´t easy for you, the people in the neighborhood and all that.”_

_He is aware that they gained attention and huffs out a breath he hadn´t known he was holding._

_“What do you want?”_

_Should he care that he is nearly shouting? He is past caring, so he blinks when she smiles sadly and speaks softly._

_“I wanted to apologize to you. It wasn´t fair of me to blame the whole thing on you. Truth is whatever Richard and me is long over. Actually I wanted to know if my attorney could send the divorce papers to your place, I mean, he does stay with you, doesn´t he.”  
In front of his inner eye he sees a picture of Richard and his throat works for a few seconds before he nods. People are still watching them, whispering. He wants to throw a pineapple after them for some childish reason._

_“Sure, no problem. Does he know it yet.”_

_Again she smiles so sad, pushes a lock of hair behind her ear. She doesn´t answer that question._

_“You know, the way he looks at you, he used to look at me like that – once, but I know that he never will again. I wish you the best of luck, really – and someday I might even be able to say that to you and mean it.”_

_She takes another breath, he stares over her head in the general direction of the dairy section._

_“Take two of those boxes, the kids are awfully fond of them and I guess they want to have some with their father when they visit him.”_

_He is so utterly gobsmacked that he doesn´t do a thing but packing them into his cart and moves on. They still need milk._

__

“So.”

Richard says, palms sweaty and tie askew when he comes home from work. Lee startles a moment that he already starts to think in such terms, but it is nothing but the truth. He is nervous, Lee observes while wringing his own hands. 

“So.” 

He answers lamely, trying not to show nerves. The divorce papers were in the mail and they lie innocently on the table in front of the T.V. That isn´t why they are both so fucking nervous, though. The doorbell rings , making them jump in unison, causing startled laughter in the wake. Lee opens the door and three sets of eyes look at him, two of them rather awestruck, a little boy, grinning toothily and a girl in pigtails, clutching a doll. 

“Daddy!”

Both of them scream at the top of their lungs and for a moment Lee feels his eardrums ring, chuckling when they manage to weasel their way around him and wrestle their father to the ground. It makes his throat tighten once again.

“Guys - guys!”  
Richard gasps and Lee just leans smirking in the doorway, not even noticing when Richards soon to be ex-wife moves away quietly.  
“Alright, let him live. There is pizza waiting for you.”  
That works like a charm.

“Thank you Mr.Lee.”

The girl says politely and a little posh which makes him chuckle again and Richard blush. 

“Just Lee is okay Ginny.”

Lee assures and the boy - Robert for his part just stares at him for a moment, eyes fixed on the ink etched in his skin.

“Is that _real_?”

He gushes, grumbling stomach forgotten. Richard, who has managed to collect himself from the ambush of two little children just brushes off lint from his jeans.

“No, you can´t have one.”

Robert just pouts at him, eyes narrowed. Richard is unfazed. 

“Pizza, yes. Tattoos – no. Not yet. Not ever.”

He mumbles under his breath, watching Robert stomp off into the kitchen. Lee just raises an eyebrow, Richard nestles with the collar of his shirt.

“Decent, Lee. At least when the kids are around.”

Lee just laughs. Maybe it wouldn´t be so bad after all.


	6. Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let there be drama! Let there be porn *dances*

_  
In his more dramatic moments Richard would say that the live that he had is finally over, that he is freed from chains holding him down. That truly sounds like something out of some cheap movie and he swallows it down in the sweltering head of the courtroom. It should have been a mere formality but it turns out like everything else in his life for the last months. A mix of a total disaster and a dreadful surprise.  
His hands are shaking when he looks at the judge. _

_“I beg your pardon, I don´t see why my children can´t live with Mr.Pace and me on the weekends without it getting checked again. We both have regular income and can provide without problems. You know that already, your honor.”_

_He grits out between clenched teeth but the judge is unfazed. He half wants to yell at him for being an homophobic asshole but he also knows that things like that aren´t wise and so he clutches his fists at his side while the judge pushes the glasses he wears back upon his nose, looking at Richard over the rim of it._

_“I do know that, Mr.Armitage. And I also know that you might think I have a problem with you both being male, but I do not. It is a formality to look into things again if one of the people involved has a criminal record.”_

_He says tersely and something in Richard freezes. If the judge or the woman beside him, his now official ex- wife see the look of utter surprise or shock on his face, neither comments on it._

_“I know the record is old and maybe Mr.Pace has forgotten about it already but that needs to be cleared.”  
_

Damn right, Richard thinks, only two hours later, screeching tires stopping in front of Lees workshop. He slams the car door so hard that David, who works for Lee just blinks owlishly at him, a moment away from making a crass joke about leaving them alone to fuck it out of their systems but the look Richard sports and the hand the Englishman holds up are enough for him to decide it is time for an early lunch break. 

Lee, who doesn´t suspect a thing and isn´t in the least prepared for the storm that is about to rage over him is working on fixing a leak on the underside of a car that in his humble opinion needs to be pressed to a tiny little ball of metal instead of taking up his time. Then again, he can´t choose and there are bills to be paid. 

“Why the bloody hell did you lie to me!”

It startles him so much when Richard shouts that he bangs his head ,making his ears ring before blinking rapidly and rolling forward. 

“Ow. What the fuck?”

He mumbles it more to himself when the world comes into focus again and his eyes zoom in on Richard who is red faced and pacing, chest heaving. 

“Yeah, I am thinking along the same lines.”

Lee still doesn´t have a clue, just rubs his head gingerly where he bumped it and ponders what could have set a man like Richard off like that. It comes to him slowly, that Richard had an court appointment earlier because of the divorce and the visiting rights for the children. Richard himself had reassured him that he wouldn´t be needed that there, that everything would be under control. Throwing the rag away he had uses to wipe his hands.

“Look, if it is about that book of yours – I am really sorry for the oil stains. I tried to get them off but..”

He doesn´t get any farther because Richard screeches like a banshee throwing his hands into the air.

“What? This isn´t about a fucking book! Why didn´t you tell me you have a criminal record?”

For a moment there Lee feels like he is stuck in some movie, some cheap plot twist forced upon them by a desperate screenwriter but he knows that isn´t the case. He knows what Richard is talking about, although he had already forgotten it. That had been another life and another time. A sneer wants to leave his mouth but all he can do is sit heavily down on the hood of the car he had been working on. 

“I was a kid Richard. It was a stupid mistake.”

Richard is still furious but some of the fight has already left him by seeing Lee fold into himself like that. 

 

“I am sorry. I didn´t know.. that it would cause problems.”

He sounds meek and defeated when he tells Richard that it had been his one true act of rebellion – stealing his fathers car and crashing it.   
“And him being him, he decided to teach me a lesson, reported the car stolen and so I was arrested. Nothing much came of it but..I am sorry.”

Richard feels torn between laughing and crying, because Lee really looks like one of his students after being caught cheating in a test. Only that this is way more serious. 

“Look Rich, I´ll go an talk to the judge.”

The older man just rakes a hand through his hair, shaking his head in the process. 

“You don´t have to do that. It will be alright.”

Lee is nothing if not stubborn, shaking his own head, trying to clear his thoughts and cursing his father anew. The truth is, he really had forgotten about the whole thing but it also hurt. I still stung and that it could be the reason that Richard wouldn´t be able to see his beloved children as often as he liked added salt to the already gaping wound. Not to mention that he liked those rascals himself quite a lot.

“No. I will not let that man ruin yet another life.”

He says with an air of finality and rises to his feet. David is back from his lunch break pokes his head in to look if something of interest has happened but since it didn´t he decides it is okay to call it a day and relax a bit while working on something lighter. Neither of them notices anyway. 

“I am sorry I yelled at you.”

Richard says and all the stress he had felt in the previous hours and days, maybe weeks leaves his body when he grasps Lees hands in his, thumbs stroking greased hands with a slight grimace. Lee smiles a little at the effort the older man makes and rubs their noses together in a silly childish gesture of affection that in turn makes Richard chuckle against his lips when he takes a step closer. 

“I like it when you yell at me.”

Lee teases if only to get the lingering tension out of the room. Richard just snorts and presses a kiss to his forehead, which makes the younger man hiss. 

“Shit.”

Richard curses, prodding at the bump there and looking like a guilty puppy. A very sexy guilty puppy but none the less guilty. Lee just brushes his fingers away. 

“It´s nothing. I´ve had worse.”

The statement makes Richard look at him but Lee just shakes his head, there are other times to talk about such things and they have much to talk about. About how it will go on, about the spare room he already has painted for the children and wanted to surprise Richard with it. God, he feels like shit and he needs a shower, so that is what he tells Richard and Richard is fine with that because he has to go to work to, is already running late as a matter of fact. Life goes on, he thinks dryly and refuses to yell at the clock to move faster because what kind of person would that make him? Well, a pretty pissed off one, that is. 

By the time Charles and Erik are done yelling at each other by the end of the last period and are back to being best friends again, he lets out a breath and checks his voice mail. He listens to it twice more to make sure he isn´t imaging the judge telling him that all matters are cleared and that it wouldn´t have been necessary for Mr. Pace to come by himself, that it only would have been a formality anyways. _That idiot_ , he thinks fondly after pocketing his phone and hastily sweeping everything into his bag he needs to get done for the next day.

He doesn´t even want to know how many speed limits he breaks until he pulls up in the drive way and he doesn´t care. He nearly stumbles over his own feet in his haste to open the door, scanning the room for Lee, who is nowhere to be seen until he hears the water run. A slow smile spreads across his face while he toes off his shoes, slinks towards the bathroom and clears his throat.

“Lee?”

He tries for innocent but the slow drag of arousal is clouding his judgment, the pull of something low in his belly.

“Shower.”

Lee yells over the water pounding down on his skin and as much as Richard wants to enter and rip his clothes away he knows that won´t happen, because he really needs to be able to walk the next day. 

“Okay.”

He shouts back and makes a beeline for the bedroom undressing on the way although he can´t help it and gives into the desire to fold his clothes into a neat pile, depositing it on the chair in the corner where he manages to stub his toe on a regular basis. He doesn´t want to think of that right then and crawls on the bed, trying for a pose that doesn´t look like he is desperate or trying to reenact porn. A flush creeps onto his face when the water shuts off and Lee, a towel around his waist, the other around his head whilst trying to dry his hair enters. 

“So, I know you said I shouldn´t - I talked to the judge , I really hope he called..”

Whatever he wants to say next dies on his tongue and nearly makes him choke. The towel around his head hits the floor while he steps closer, folding his arms over his chest. 

“Now, I would make jokes about Christmas being damn early but..”

To his utter horror Richard has to stifle a giggle and turns his head away quickly to cover his embarrassment and the fact that maybe Lee isn´t in the mood. Biting his lip with some worry he only looks up when the bed dips and gentle fingers are touching his jaw.

“Hey, look at me. It´s not that I don´t want that, I am just surprised.”

Grinding his erection against Richards hip which makes them both groan he cannot refuse to make the bad joke of being pleasantly surprised, which only makes Richard flush harder. 

“You are insufferable, do you know that.”

Lee just grins, throwing the last barrier of clothing between them carelessly away and he startles a bit when his teasing fingers come away wet from Richards hole. His eyes are nearly black, breathe coming out in short little puffs.  
“So that gives you the right to start without me? While poor little me is in the shower , all unsuspecting and innocent.”

He says and even has the gall to bat his eyelashes while hovering over the other man and Richard, bless his heart, wraps his legs around Lees waist and flips them. For a moment all air leaves Lees lungs and Richard smirks. 

“Lame is what I would call it, I´ve been waiting for ages and what is a poor sod who is horny as hell able to do then take matters in his own hands.”

Lee groans at the mental images of Richard fingering himself open while he was showering all kind of thoughts in this mind but not that. 

“Hey!”

He says when his brain and mouth work together again and Richard chuckles, bites his earlobe and splays his hands on Lees heaving chest. 

“Sorry, that was uncalled for. Now..where were we?”

Richard is good at that, playing coy and making Lee loose his last nerve and he has practiced it well, sliding back and forth over his hard and leaking cock without making the attempt to let it got further until he stops, sweetly flushed and trembling. Lee is a mess himself, aching, wanting – almost begging when Richard suddenly moves up and off, turns around and settles on Lees thighs against, naked ass inches from Lees erection. 

“Rich.. you don´t...”

He says when he realizes that Richard doesn´t even make a go for the condoms that are placed in the nightstand and that he has his back turned towards him. His foggy brain supplies that it is gesture of ultimate trust, something you do either because you are stupid or in love or maybe both. He doesn´t get to finish what he wants to say either because Richard sinks down in one long motion and he screams, cursing up a blue streak and he can´t for the life of him be gentle when he grabs the other mans hips, slams into him over and over again. Yeah, he wants to hear Richard, each broken and muttered sound, relishes in the beads of sweat running down his back and he nearly bends him in half when he moves up on his knees, sliding out and back in, hard and determined.   
There is a growl coming from one of them but he doesn´t know who is emitting it and frankly he doesn´t give a shit when he knows that he found the spot that makes Richard _howl_ into the sheets and clench around him.

With a devilish glint in his eye he snakes his hand around and fists Richard in time with his strokes, biting down hard on his shoulder when the next clench makes his vision whiten out and blood rushes through his head. On the edge of his vision he can feel the wetness splashing over his hand and presses a kiss behind Richards ear. He tries to be gentle when he pulls out but he can feel the hiss of the other man who still doesn´t look at him and when he does there is moisture in his eyes.   
Lee is horrified but Richard just shakes his head, wiping angrily at his eyes. He hates when he gets emotional but he sometimes can´t help it either. 

“I am just..I am just glad we are okay.”

At that Lee gives a smile and pulls Richard close, sharing soft and lazy kisses that hold nothing of the frenzy their coupling had.

“Yeah. We are.”

He says and groans because the shower he had taken is now worth for nothing. Richard just raises his eyebrows at him and reminds him that he is one to talk because he would be the one who would have the pleasure of walking stiff legged come the next day, so how is he to blame that he actually calls in sick when Lee whispers promises of breakfast in bed and other not so innocent things in his ear?


	7. Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And here we have drama, yet again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi - and thank you for leaving comments, kudos and so much inspiration and love - not only on this work but also my other stuff. It means a lot to me <3

“What do you mean by that?”

Lee asks over breakfast One morning, still half asleep and not following what Richard is talking about. Now, he doesn´t himself consider dumb, but sometimes he just cannot follow the other man and what he is talking about. 

“Parents. Would you consider adoption.”

That makes Lee nearly choke on the sweet cereals he had been wolfing down and he wonders where that train of thought comes from but he is busy trying to get burn of milk out of his nostrils because he sneezed. 

“You want me to adopt your parents? How in the world would that work? Are you on meds?”

He asks and blinks. Richard just stares at him with frustration and irritation. A look he would consider sexy if it wouldn´t be a Sunday and he would sit at the kitchen table with nothing but boxers and tube socks. It is a look Richard – who wears a bathrobe over his pajamas – isn´t really fond of but he himself loves. He in turn doesn´t complain about the look Richard sports and thinks that it evens things out - wardrobe wise. 

“No.”

Richard says with a scowl and rolls his eyes for good measure, unable to hide a smile at Lees failure to get his brain working early on any day even if he denies it. 

“I was thinking.”

Lee lowers his head onto his forearms and groans. It is way to early for that but he knows if Richard risks being banned from the bed after annoying him beyond the level he could cope with it must be serious. It only had happened once, if he remembers correctly and it was idiotic. 

__

_“What?”_

_Richard yells at him over the pieces of a broken model car littering the living room floor. He doesn´t understand it one bit, the way that Lee trembles, clenches his fists at his sides and looks like he is about to cry over some fucking toy. It doesn´t help the situation at all that he says that out loud and Lee grits his teeth, trying to get all of the broken parts of the once pristine model back together but fails and lets them drop to the floor, sinking down on the carpet next to the various small parts. He doesn´t cry, doesn´t say a word. He just stares at it with a blank expression that makes Richard shudder. Richard clutches the duster in his hand a bit tighter. He wanted to give the place a good cleaning, because really, he was all for a bit of chaos but Lee had a different kind of chaos in his life and he had thought that he would do the man a favor. And then he had swept off the car of a shelf and it had clattered to the floor before he could catch it. He had asked Lee once why he kept it there but Lee hadn´t said a thing._

_“Lee. Talk to me.”_

_But Lee doesn´t. Lee just stands with the same blank expression and moves swiftly to the bedroom getting blankets and a pillow. Richard just blinks again – not knowing what the hell is going on._

_“No. If you..care for me – at all, you´ll sleep here tonight. And I do that because I really love you and because of that I also don´t want to talk to you right now since all that would come out of my mouth would be hurtful and something I regret in the morning.”_

_Richard opens his mouth, closes it again and doesn´t say a word when he settles down for the night on the too small sofa, no doubt damaging his back. He tries to sleep and he pretends to overhear the silent and none the less soul wrecking sobs he can hear through the closed bedroom door. He decides if he cannot sleep, he will try to fix whatever he has done to upset the other man so and scrapes together every little part of the car he can find, putting it into a box. He will get this fixed even if he swears to himself that he never will ask again. He wants Lee to tell it himself._

__

“Come again?”

Lee really tries but memories and not fully aware of what is happening – well it proves to be a challenge.

“What would you think about being a parent. Legally.”

It sounds full of hesitance and it wakes Lee up a little more. This is something Richard has apparently thought about a while and he doesn´t know how to answer that. Sure, he is good with the children. He thinks of the evenings spend with them, how they decorated rooms for them and ended up painted and full of some glitter that never will go out of his sweater again and Ginny, proudly had called it art while Robert had rolled his eyes at her. Suddenly he is wide awake and wishes he would still be asleep because then he would be able to say something that would make no sense and nobody would get hurt. He isn´t. They are staring at each other and he swallows.

“Why. I mean..how..I.”

Richard sighs. He knows it is much to early for something like that but sometimes life was just not fair and things happened. Things that had been said to him by the woman he was trying very much not to hate for wanting to start over. With a long and almost painful intake of breath he tries to recollect the events that have taken him to that particular question enough to be able to tell Lee.

__

_“Say something Richard. I know you can speak. I even know you can read and write. You are a teacher after all, aren´t you?”_

_She sounds more defeated than nasty but there is a certain edge to her voice and he isn´t sure he can blame for sounding like that. They had tried, they had failed. It was simple in it´s logic but that wasn´t it. It wasn´t logic that spoke out of her and it also hadn´t been logic that had driven them apart. The gossip had died down gradually, painfully. There had been losses all around. Some other teachers looked at him differently but refrained from saying anything towards him, and he was glad for that, small miracles , Lee had called that.  
Richard had called him idiot for it, but none the less smiled. Cutting into that fond memory is the woman in front of him wringing her hands. _

_“What do you want me to say? I am grown up. We both are.”_

_The children are not, swings heavily within the sentence. It isn´t really fair but what in life is anyways. This isn´t about the divorce -no they are past all that, they are fine with going different ways and starting new. Or so he thought. Silly of him, a sarcastic voice inside his head tells him. Staring into his cup of coffee he tries not to smash it against the kitchen wall behind her head. She had wanted to talk to him and he had felt bad about, something nagging in his mind but as he had asked Lee, the younger man had just shrugged and suggested that it probably was about something with the kids. Well, he had been right about that at least._

_“I want a new start but I cannot do that here. I simply cannot do that anymore, god help me.”_

_She had gotten too quiet and suddenly Richard knew what she wanted to say and yet couldn´t bring herself to do it. She wasn´t a bad person, never had been a bad mother and knew that it was desperation._

_“God has nothing to do with that, I am afraid.”_

_He heard himself say as if through a thick layer of cotton but he can´t smile. It is maybe cruel to say something like that but he cannot think of anything else. With a sigh he takes her hands in his when she starts to cry. Open body wrecking sobs that still tear at his heart after all this time._

_“Does that make me a bad person? That I don´t want ,cannot stand the thought of them growing up around me, hating me years down the line from tearing them away, not being able to face what our boy may look like when he grows? To not be able to stare at the same face his father wears?”_

_He thinks a long time over it, her hands still in his._

_“No. It makes you only human.”_

_Is all he says.  
_

Lee blinked slowly. 

“She wants to move back. She has never been happy here anyways but she cannot – will not rip the kids away from everything they know so..well, I told her there are other things to consider. That I wanted to ..wanted you in on the decision.”

Lee says nothing for a moment or ten while inwardly he is shaking and thinking so fast his head starts to hurt.

“Let me get this straight. You want to raise children with a man crying over a broken toy?”

Richard says nothing but bites his lips until he feels the copper taste of blood in his mouth. He hadn´t want to ask about that night, had almost forgotten it.

“About that..I..”

Lee interrupts him.

“It was a present from a friend. He died some years ago and – I really I don´t want to talk about that now. Or ever. It was silly of me and I am sorry that I reacted so childish.”

That Richard can respect, even if he sees the tremor racing through the other mans body. What he cannot accept is the slump in his shoulders. 

“You don´t have to decide now – it´s not soon. Well in , a month or two but..”

Lee cuts him off yet again and if he wouldn´t be distressed he would be pissed. 

“I´ll think about it Rich. That´s not something to be decided over breakfast but I promise to think about, okay?”

He says with a smile that makes Richard hopeful before standing up and muttering something. Once he reaches the living room he stops dead in his tracks and stares at the toy car he thought destroyed glued back together and in its old place. He turns so fast on his heel that he nearly falls on his ass, only to bump into Richard who has followed him.

“Er – surprise?”

He whispers and Lee just places a kiss on his lips without saying anything.


	8. Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And on we go :) There is more drama but hopefully you still enjoy - thank you so much so far for all the lovely feedback , not only on this story :) It really helps me feeding the muse.

_Robert Dawyer is the same age as Lee when he tries to run away for the first time for no reason at all and is caught only two hours after doing so. His mother is close to tears when Mr.Dawyer returns Lee back to her and his father just stares at him with that silent judgmental stare of his, shaking his head._

_No, his father is never One to yell at him, he got that very early in his life and he doesn´t even know if he should be grateful or terrified at that. In the end it is a mix of both when he blinks from under his lashes._

_The reason – or none reason – as he likes to call it, why he ran away is that his mother very gently told him that he is going to have a sister, something he didn´t want and so he had packed his backpack, his favorite pair of jeans and a peanut butter sandwich. Everything a six year old boy would think of before venturing in the wide world on his own. Mr.Dawyer whose family lived down the street and whose eldest son, Robert was a head taller than Lee, just smiled at him , ruffling his hair, telling him that everything would be fine. Lee hadn´t been so sure but his mother – after yelling at him for giving her an heart attack and hugging the stuffing out of him at the same time, said the same._

_Robert was a quiet boy, polite like his father but not as loud and brash as his four brothers. His mother had left them a year prior but Mr.Dawyer never talked about it and Lees mother thought they should become friends, seeing that Lee also wasn´t really loud and hadn´t many friends. Both boys weren´t pleased at the prospect of a forced friendship but there wasn´t much you could do when your parents told you something, was there? So Robert, quiet and moody as he seemed came over one week later, a model car tucked under his arm. Lee had blinked at the car, then back at Robert who in turn just sighed._

_“Let me in so we can play, will you?”_

_Lee couldn´t do anything but step aside, eyes fixed on the car Robert was holding._

__

Now, Richard is never impolite but there are certain things that leave him flabbergasted. In the particular case, it is a harried looking woman, lugging two suitcases behind her, sunglasses askew on her head and cursing. 

“Will you help me already, or are you just decor?” 

Richard opens his mouth, closes it again when Lee bounds down the steps, nearly tripping over his own feet and wearing a thunderous expression.

“What are _you_ doing here?”

He all but spits and Richard can´t help it, he stares back and forth between them as if he is watching a particular interesting tennis match. 

“I didn´t know where to go and mom told me where you are. God can you believe the _nerve_ of that bastard? I am so glad we don´t have kids, that would have been a mess.”

She says and shoves one of her suitcases at Richard who drops it onto Lees foot. Lee barely suppresses an outright howl while Richard finally finds the nerve to speak.

“What the fuck is going on?”

He yells, spit flying from his mouth. Lee just shrugs.

“I am Sally. Lees sister.”

She says as if that explains everything and suddenly Lee feels the need to throttle her on the front porch but refrains from doing so because of the neighbors and lord knows they were nosy enough already.

“I am going to call mother.”

Lee says so icily that Richard shivers, having never heard Lee talk like that and he also has never seen the other man look so cold at someone, ignoring for a moment that this is his first real brush with the other mans family. She deflates a bit at that and rakes a hand through her hair, a gesture he eerily associates with Lee and has to shake his head in order to clear it. 

“I am sorry about the way I..assaulted you without saying a word but .. you wouldn´t understand it anyways.”

He gives her a tight smile at that.  
“Maybe not. Maybe better than you think. Your manners aside – welcome , my name is Richard, as you might have noticed I am not only decor but also Lees partner.”

She glances in the general direction in which Lee has disappeared before shaking his hand, having the grace to blush. 

“Yeah, sorry about that, too.”

They both can hear Lee talk to his mother in the other room, his voice low but even. After ten minutes that seem like a lifetime he comes back to them, takes her suitcases and carries them up the stairs into one of the room for the kids. Sallys eyes widen for a moment but she says nothing because Lee still is looking like he might want to bite her head off at any given moment. Richard takes the opportunity to glance at his watch, clearing his throat more loudly than he normally does.  
It is still early and before the ambush of Lees sister he was ready to go to work. Now he isn´t so sure if he should leave them alone in the same room but he does have a job and he guesses that Lee will take a day off, given the circumstances. 

“I am awfully sorry but I do have to go to work.”

He says and for the first time Lee who is still in his sleepwear, smiles, dragging him into a kiss that is just the wrong side of proper. Richard is sure he does it on purpose and he doesn´t find it in himself to care if Sally or the whole world is watching. Clearing his throat again, he disentangles himself from the other man, telling him in quiet words that he will be back like always and Lee just nods at him, the tension he had felt in his body slowly melting away. He calls David and tells him that he has to take the day off and David just shrugs – or at least that is what Lee imagines him doing, reminding him that he is the boss and that he can use the extra hours at the end of the month. 

“He is nice.”

She says when he just rummages around the kitchen in search of coffee, lighting a cigarette, failing to not stare at his tattoo. There are a lot of things she doesn´t really know about him, or doesn´t accept – at least that is what he thinks when she wrinkles her nose. 

“Oh please, don´t be such a snob.”

He all but growls at her and looks at her for the first time. She looks like hell warmed over and he can imagine it now, how she has haphazardly thrown everything she owns into two suitcases, leaving the man she thought she would love and who would love her in return. Not that he hated her or had never wanted her around but their relationship was strained, to put it mildly.

“I didn´t know you still smoked -and I am not a snob, just healthy, for your information, dearest brother.”

She hasn´t lost any of her bite and he wonders when she will finally tell him what she really wants to say without fearing that he might throw her out onto the street, taking drags off his cigarette and watching her squirm for a moment. Her gaze is like that of a hawk, observing , taking everything in. They have little in common but they always respected each other to a degree. 

“You..plan on having children?”

Something in his chest tugs painfully but he says nothing for a moment, just looks at her long and hard.  
“Richard has two lovely children. Their mother wants to move away, so they will stay here when that happens. They are lovely, very polite - fucking far from what we were their age.” 

She has to smile at that, wringing her hands, the ring still there on her small fingers.

“Good to hear that.”

There is a pause, heavy and pregnant with tension, he knows by heart what will come next, what always comes and his gaze flickers to something behind her – the newly put back together car. 

“This..this isn´t about Robert, is it? I mean, they look sort of alike and.”

For the first time in his entire life he wants to slap her but instead of doing anything he will regret later he just barks out a laugh. 

“No.”

_  
He doesn´t really know when Robert and him fall in love and how to break it to their parents but he is sure that they will have all the time in the world to explain it to their friends, to everybody who wants to hear or see and Robert sees it much the same, even if he isn´t as enthusiastic about it. When he comes back, after doing his duty for the country, as he likes to put it – he will tell the world, has already planned a house for them, something he can afford – and Lee would be able to launch his own business._

_He presents Lee with the model car from way back and they are both a little teary eyed, given that they won´t see each other for a while.  
When a year later, someone in uniform presents Roberts father with a flag and kind words, Lee can´t even find the courage to walk over their house, let alone cry. He spends days and nights staring at the model car and he hates it everyday a little more until he finally manages to pull himself together. It is like walking through a minefield, his hand heavy and like something not belonging to his body, the model car in his other. _

_Mr.Dawyer opens on the second knock and stares at the toy._

_“I wondered when you might come by.”_

_He says, his voice hollow and drained but he finds himself unable to say something for a long painful while._

_“I thought you might want this.”_

_He presses out with much effort and trembling hands. Robert had told him that his father and him had build the damn thing but back them nobody would have thought that Robert, sweet and gentle Robert had to go to war. It wasn´t fair. Once Lee opens his mouth , he can´t stop and Mr.Dawyer looks at him and shakes his head._

_“No, it isn´t.”_

_He speaks with Lee as if he is a child and maybe he is, for the man in front of him brushes his hair away as if he wouldn´t be legal already and smiles so sad that Lee finally cries until his face is splotchy and his eyes an angry red.  
_

“No, Sally. It isn´t about Robert. Not that you cared.”

Her face is set in a firm line and she snatches the rest of the cigarette from him, smoking it herself. He doesn´t comment on it.

“Bullshit. We all cared, it´s just I ..I don´t want you to end up like me, is all.”

He ponders that while he readies one of the rooms yet not occupied by the children for her and comes to the conclusion that he never will be like that – unhappy because of expectations other people have. Sometimes, he pities her, sometimes he doesn´t but all that he doesn´t tell her and when Richard comes home he is setting the table for the three of them ,seeing that the children are with their mother.

“You cooked. Is the world ending?”

Richard tries and Lee stares momentarily at the cutlery in front of him and shakes his head. Richard has the uncanny gift of knowing exactly when something is wrong and also the ability to wring it from the person in question. Lee tells him everything – about his sister and about Robert and what the damn toy really stands for and by the end of it he sits down heavily on a kitchen chair, pounding head in his hands. 

“I see.”

Richard says but the tone isn´t icy and the warm hand on his back reassures him that everything between them is fine even if Richard doesn´t touch the food once Lee admits that his sister did the cooking but offers to do the dishes later and nearly forces Lee to rest before he falls over. Lee is asleep when Sally and Richard are in the kitchen and he looks at her without blinking. 

“Look, I know I was a little..well – rude, but I guess we can be friends.”

She says and Richard still says nothing which makes her twitch like it does his students when they did something bad. He is pleased by that. 

“No.”

He says and before she can ask what that means, he rushes on in the speech he has had prepared throughout the entire day in his head. 

“Don´t get me wrong, I have nothing against you, I just think that you have quite the nerve to come barging into our lives as if that would be common or acceptable. It isn´t. Lee may be your brother but from the way you threat him, I don´t think it would be wise for you to stay here , you upset him enough for one day.”

She raises her eyebrows.

“You – you are kicking me out of my brothers house?”

He doesn´t even pretend to be sorry.

“No, I merely suggest you leave before it gets uncomfortable for everyone involved.”  
At that she crosses her arms over her chest.

“And you have the nerve to say that to me after forcing your offspring onto him?”

He turns at her, a plate from the uneaten dinner still in his hand, deadly calm.

“I didn´t force my children on him. He painted the rooms himself – as you might have forgotten he is a grown man and everything between him and me is our decision to make. Now move out of my sight before I forget my manners.”

He leaves her standing in the kitchen without another word.


	9. Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And on we go in your little story - since I was missing it with smut *dances* As always comments , kudos and constructive critisim are always welcome. Sunny greetings from Germany :D

_  
Richard knows that some things in life come with a price. That there is a twist to everything and that nothing really readies you for life´s hardships, so when his father looks at him over the rim of his glasses, folding the newspaper in his hands he knows that nothing good will come from it. A lecture, yes but nothing good, nothing that will make him happy and he knows that even if he is only twelve years old._

_“So now you are a thief are you?”_

_His fathers voice is harsh and unforgiving, something Richard is used to, something he has known his entire life and nothing he wishes to hear often or at all._

_“I am not.”_

_He says with all the bravery a child that has been caught shoplifting for the very first time and the only time he has ever tried that._

_“Good. Very good.”_

_“John.”_

_His mother says from somewhere Richard doesn´t look, instead focuses on the way his father stares at him, with that unnerving tick in his cheek and the desire to say something but nothing leaves his mouth and so he just keeps staring at the kitchen table._

_“Don´t. He knows damn well that if he wants something he can´t afford from the money he has saved he has to work harder for it. Get another job.”_

_“For Christ´s sake John! He is twelve and not thirty!”_

_He has never heard his mother yell like that and also never has seen his father visibly flinch back as if he has been struck. His parents, they aren´t people who yell or fight often and so he is taken a little aback that this – no, that him could be the reason for them arguing._

_“Someday he will be thirty! And if he doesn´t learn some things now, he will never do it.”_

_Richard doesn´t dare to point out that he is still in the room and that he can hear what they are saying and he also doesn´t protest when his father drags him to the toy store down the street and makes him apologize to the owner for his misdeeds.  
“Well, I believe we have a misunderstanding here, haven´t we Richard?”_

_Mr. Aaronson who owns the store looks down at him with kind and crinkled eyes and he wonders for a moment where that might lead and his head snaps up when the man just shakes his head once his father looks at him questioningly._

_“See, young Richard here didn´t steal that puzzle, really. I gifted it to him because he helped me run some errands, he is probably just to modest to tell you something like that. Just like you.”_

_Richard just stares at the man who comes around the counter and kneels besides him although he isn´t that small, a hand at his back._

_“You don´t mind cleaning the attic for me, do you this weekend and the next? Everything as planned , right?”_

_He shakes his head and nods. His father is surprised but satisfied to be wronged and Richard, well, he swears to go with the lesser of two evils for now._

__

“What do you mean? Just left? Is there a reason for that.?”

Lee is puzzled, more than that when his sister has already left and moved into a hotel by the time he comes home and Richard is in a surprisingly good mood. He has cleaned the entire house and he is whistling, which makes Lee narrow his eyes.

“And the children? I mean, everything is okay, isn´t it?”

He has learned to be suspicious and Richard curses him for a moment, staring at the pile of paperwork he has taken home from school and that had needed to be finished a week ago but he hadn´t come around to it. Grimacing he shrugs when Lee crowds him against the sink.

“Okay. What is wrong?”

Lee is one of those annoying people who know when they are being lied to and that has Richard cursing anew, running soapy hands through his hair and all of a sudden he thinks back, way back into his childhood and to someone that he could never forget. Nothing more than a memory these days, but still there. 

“I suggested that she better stay somewhere else because we value our privacy and well, then she said something about me forcing my children on you and I kind of..got carried away.”

He is aware that he is blushing to the roots of his hair and Lee shakes his head, a smile tugging at his lips. 

“What did you do, throw a textbook after her?”

Lee just can´t help it even if he is a tad annoyed at the adoringly blabbering man in front of him. 

“It´s not funny, you tosser. I was merely trying to protect you from her.”  
That makes Lee raise an eyebrow.  
“You did see her, right? She ain´t King Kong so I dare to say you worry too much but thank you none the less.”

The younger man teases and Richard looks down at his shoes in fear of saying something that he might regret later. There is a hand on his jaw a few seconds after that and he looks up just in the right moment to see when Lee leans in for a kiss that is between soft and urgent, a funny little thing that happens when one of them is stressed or pissed but Richard doesn´t mind one bit. Instead of saying anything he lets his hands wander over Lees shoulders, fingers gripping his hair and exercising pressure until Lee pulls back, licking his lips.

“Ah, so you have a plan, then.”

Richard flushes at the teasing note in the other mans voice but doesn´t dignify it with a comment. Instead he pulls on Lees fingers, maneuvering him around furniture and over carpets without tripping. 

“I do feel a little dumb, you know – if you don´t talk to me.”

Lee says gently, pupils blown wide and breath a little shorter and for the first time Richard allows himself to grin like a kid in a candy store. 

“Oh, talking? And here I was thinking, you know – that we might be past that.”

He says to Lee while he unbuttons his shirt, kisses the bared skin and tries to keep his tongue on the inked skin he finds so irresistible but is stopped by a hand in his hair.

“I had a long, very boring day – and my sister is probably out for my head so I suggest you make it up to me before I remember all the things why I should be at least a little bit mad at you.”

Richard might be the calmer of the two of them but the brute strength he sometimes has surprises Lee every time and so he is wide eyed and panting once the older man practically throws him onto their shared bed, crawling over him.

“And if I promise you to forget your name?”

Lee licks his lips again, flips them with a move Richard didn´t anticipate judging from the curse leaving his lips but Lee cannot gloat any longer because Richard also is quick to regain his wits and by now used to strip them both in record time. Not that either of them notices the slight chill that comes with losing your clothes all of sudden. Lee can´t help it, mirth in his eyes, hands on Richards back, fingers dancing over the ridges in his spine. He makes a mental note that he will see to it the other man eats more and regularly before biting his earlobe, a filthy whisper in his ear. Truth to be told he had been pissed when Sally had called him from the motel and he only left that out because he wanted to know Richards side of that argument first. For now he shoves all thoughts that don´t concern the man above him into the farthest corner of his mind. 

“I still know my name. Are we lacking?”

It is a teasing jibe that has the same effect as always. Richard growls and it makes Lee close his eyes, lashes fluttering against his cheeks only to stare wide eyed at the other man a second later. Something cold grazes his calves and his gaze flickers to Richards belt. They haven´t done that often and a flutter of anticipation coils low in his belly.

“That is no way to talk to your lover, don´t you think so Pace?”  
Lee flushes. 

“Oh, and what would you like me to do? Drop my pants anytime and anywhere, presenting myself to you, free to be taken because you feel like it?”

The blush on Richards face suggests that he wouldn´t say no to that in the slightest and doesn´t that conjure images. 

“Twenty might be enough for such a foul mouth, don´t you think?”

Lee swallows, its not that he doesn´t trust Richard, he just thinks he might not be ready for that yet, not with a belt anyway. Richard knows from the set of the other mans shoulders that he isn´t ready and so he just strokes his cheek, trying to keep the embarrassment Lee probably feels to a minimum, slicking up his throbbing erection and gasping when his hand is joined by that of his partner.

“You can do that to me, later. I promise.” 

His voice is thick and heavy with arousal and all Richard can do is nod, pressing up against Lees ever slicker palm before he pushes him to his side, slides back behind him and thrusts in on one smooth stroke, biting the younger mans shoulder. The Brit takes a shuddering breath, tries to focus. His hand wraps around the other mans cock, keeping the slight discomfort of being stretched with only spit at bay – or so he hopes. From the sounds Lee is making he has no doubt that he is succeeding. Their pace is slow but not gentle, they can both hear it from the creaking of the bed frame which makes Richard put down a mental not of doing something against that once the children come to live with them. Forcing those thoughts away for the moment, he speeds up and Lee turns his face, stealing a kiss or ten. It doesn´t take long for either of them to come, him quietly against Lees shoulder, Lee with a long drawn out moan into his mouth, splattering on his own belly and the sheets. 

Boneless and sated Lee startles once Richard titters.

“What?”

Richard says nothing, just huddles closer to the warm and sweaty body next to his own.

“Just remembering something.”

Lee smiles at that. 

“Something good?”

Richard smirks. 

“My secret, maybe I tell you later. Or never, who knows.”

Lee, for all the world, just pouts at him and Richard nibbles at his bottom lip.

__

_Richard knows that it was a mistake to steal that damn puzzle by the time he has worked his ass off for Mr.Aarson in his attic, dusting, sorting and god knows what else – one doesn´t really remember those things when you are twelve, the weather is lovely and you spent your weekends in a stuffed room full of old books._

_“Well, thank you Richard.”_

_Aaronson tells him by the end of week three and Richard wonders if the man is senile or something but doesn´t say it out loud although it might show on his face. The older man is unfazed._

_“If you hadn´t stolen that I would have had to clean the attic myself or worse hire someone to do it. So we both gain something from that, don´t we?”_

_Richard had said nothing but nodded none the less and never stolen another thing in his life._

__

“Are you done?”

Richard asks Lee who is laughing so hard tears are leaking from his eyes but shakes his head none the less. Apparently he isn´t. 

“Sorry, but..”

He bursts into laughter again but pulls Richard close to him a second later, both of them a tangle of limbs.

“I am glad though, that you didn´t consider a life of crime. One of us has to be the crook and the other the honest one.”

Richard doesn´t agree on that but Lee silences him with a finger, lacing their hands together. For once Richard decides to play along but not forever.


	10. ten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And on our little journey goes :) As always have fun <3

Richard flexed his hands, staring at the man at the other side of the desk he was sitting at. His back was cramping and his hand most likely broken but he felt so numb at the moment that he couldn´t even concentrate on the here and now. His thoughts flew to the previous hours and what on earth had possessed him to act like he had acted. Not only had he punched someone so hard that said someone had sported a broken jaw but he had also done that in front of the man´s child. 

No, he wasn´t proud of that and he wasn´t proud that he had been escorted out of the school like some criminal by two officers and that everyone just stood there and had stared. God, he hated himself for that but still, he didn´t feel bad. If that made any sense. Right now, nothing made sense and he winced when Lee came into the precinct, worried expression on his pale face and looking harried. 

Everything had been so good, so wonderful. And now? He wanted to cry again, wanted to do something but instead he simply remained sitting in his chair. 

“Thank god you are alright! I came here as soon as I could, what happened?”

Well, Richard wanted to tell him but he just couldn´t bring himself to open his mouth about the matter even if it wasn´t his fault. In all the years he had been a teacher he had never punched anybody , even if he sometimes felt the need to do it but he had calmed down enough. It was that, he mused what had made him snap. He had always been restrained, calm and collected and rarely, as he knew now , himself.   
It left a bitter taste in his mouth but he swallowed around it. 

“I am fine, Lee. Thanks for coming. I didn´t..I didn´t want to call a lawyer yet but I guess I will have to..”

Lee shushed him and smiled a little helplessly at the young officer sitting across from Richard who just sighed. 

“Mr.Armitage punched someone at a parent teacher conference in front of twenty eye witnesses after some words had been exchanged. Now..this sounds a little more drastic as it was, since the ..uh – victim didn´t press charges.”

Lee just raised his eyebrows, totally perplexed at the situation unfolding in front of him and not really knowing what to make of it. 

“Well, who did?”

Richard mouth thinned into an unhappy line.

“The school did.”

Lee closed his eyes, counted to ten and then to a hundred because it wasn´t what Richard said that made him see clearer what might have happened but what he didn´t say. 

“And?”

He pressed, hissing more or less because Richard didn´t say anything else and the man in front of them had to take the brunt of his anger but the man just chuckled. 

“Look, I know that you are pissed - everyone usually is if they have to bail someone out.”

Lee felt his teeth grind together but he remained silent and let the officer fill him in that Richard had stepped in between the father and his son. Now, that hadn´t been the reason why he had punched the guy in the face, even if it had started it. It had been the things he had said Richard would be capable off, that he had gotten wind of it and as it was one word had lead to the other and finally, even Richard had reached the end of his rope. 

“Does this mean he can come with me now?”

At that Richard looked at him and frowned. He had expected a different reaction from the younger man but he was sure that they could talk about that later – if there would be a later where they actually talked about those things because that - talking – was a thing they seldom did and Richard had been fine with that and still was. 

“Yeah, sure. We ..uh ..you know. The usual. If there is something more to that we´ll let you know.”

Lee didn´t even look at the man nor at Richard who in turn was seriously getting more pissed by the minute. 

“Okay, so I punched some homophobic asshole that threatened his son like some sort of prized animal and you are mad at me? Care to share?”

Lee whirled around in the parking lot, trembling with barely suppressed rage. 

“Yeah, I will.”

He took a deep breath, sat behind the steering wheel of his car and tried to relax, even if it wasn´t easy.

“You gave them finally a real reason didn´t you?. They will most likely fire you because some rich, idiotic bastard said something to you and you, like the foolish idiot you sometimes are, had to act on it – this time of all times.”

Richard blanched, cursed his actions anew and then he started to laugh. Lee just stared at him as if he had lost his mind and blinked. 

“Why on earth is that so funny.”

Richard wiped his eyes, a few stray tears escaping him while Lee drove. 

“Oh nothing, you are just the last person on earth I expected that from.”

At the next red light Lee stopped the car so abruptly that he nearly hit his head on the windshield. 

“Is that so.”

 _God_ Richard thought, that wasn´t his day. First he had burned his tongue on the coffee he nearly never drank and then, well then – the whole mess with Walther Pambroke had started. He had always hated the man and he was sure there was a reason why his wife cowered next to him and his son, a sweet and shy boy that reminded him of himself at that age, flinched while his father listened to what Richard did have to say with only one ear, eyes fixed on his phone. 

It had been nothing out of the ordinary until the man had had the nerve to say to him that he wouldn´t understand how to raise a real man. He even did that let slide but in the parking lot of the school he could see how the man had yelled at the boy, obviously just seconds away from hitting him. He had stepped forward and he had tried to talk. Naturally he had assumed that the man would see reason and naturally he had been wrong about it. He sighed, eyes fixed on the road ahead.

“I didn´t mean it.”

Lee still said nothing. 

“You did. And you don´t regret punching that scumbag. Hell, I would have done the same from what I heard.”

His lips twitched. 

“You know, news travel fast these days.”

Richard pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes. Yeah, they did but it still angered him. He had worked hard for his position and he was furious about the fact that his personal life still seemed to be more important than the work he had put his back into all those years.

“So you are not mad at me?”

He asked hopefully and Lee sighed. 

“No. I am just worried that if..if something comes out of that, that well – You know, things haven´t been good lately and I don´t know how many nights a week the children will like Spagetti if the money is tight. I could look for a second job but..”

Richard shushed him his face still pale but determined.

“No. Please don´t think that way. Ever. We will make it, I swear it and I am man enough to know when I fucked up.”

He grinned a bit at the round eyes staring back at him when they reached their house. 

“God, you have still blind faith in mankind, haven´t you?”

At that Richard simply shrugged, wincing when he felt the pain in his hand once he tried to open the door but he hastily covered it with a cough, deciding that he would go and see a doctor after all. It took him a while to turn towards Lee who stared at him oddly for a moment before he waved it off.

“Well, one of has to be.”

Was all he said and they made their way into the house leaving their troubles out for a little longer.


	11. Eleven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I am back. So are our lovely boys and I thope you still like to read as much about them as I like to write even if life recently got in the way of it a bit. Still, enjoy, feel free to comment and as always let me know what you think <3

It feels like a lifetime since Richard has talked to his folks back home but he thinks it is finally time and he feels as if he would be climbing a mountain, be on a bizarre journey through dangerous lands , on a quest – instead of making a long distance phone call to his mother across the pond. She listens to him and informs him that she would know everything already anyway because even if Richard might have forgotten it, he still had a brother living not that far away from him.   
It stings a lot more than it should but he takes the blow none the less and soon they move on to more harmless discussions about the weather and yes, he really is happy. It isn´t a phase. It isn´t a crisis. He grits his teeth through the more spiteful words that reach his ears through the line and he looks in the general direction of the bedroom where Lee has crashed an hour ago. Tired and worn out from his work. He has been pulling double shifts although he says that he hasn´t and it makes Richard a bit furious that Lee apparently thinks he has to lie, to make it right somehow. _Idiot_ he thinks fondly and a hell of a lot enraged but he tramples it down until there is nothing else remaining of that bitter taste that always comes with arguments. And that is all kinds of crazy, because they haven´t even had a fight. 

Fact is, he is going to go crazy if he has to stay in the house a day longer. He hadn´t gotten fired by the school since the backlash would have been so much worse for them in the end as his lawyer had assured him but he has been advised to take some apparently long needed vacation. The only thing that remotely satisfies him about the whole ordeal is that the vacation will be paid and that he keeps his job and nobody can do anything about it at the moment. That makes his lips curve up into a somewhat sardonic smile that he seldom wears those days. 

Not that he isn´t looking for a new job because he hates the place anyways but has realized it only recently . Still, he will endure as he always has done for the time being. God , he has been good at that, enduring things and people, wading through all the hazards life has thrown at him. There have been so much of them that he still tents to suck them up and put them in a box even if it sets him more on edge than it already has done in the past few weeks. He is so much on edge that he actually slams the phone down so hard after he ends the call it makes the table underneath it rattle with the force of it. For another long moment he just stands there, closing his eyes and trying to get his raging emotions under control and he all but screams when he feels someone touching him.  
There is a hand on his elbow and his daughter looks up at him, bright eyed and awake when she should be sleeping but she is a child and children seldom do what they are told to do when they have something else on their minds and he can see she is.

“Yeah sugar?”

He tries and discreetly hides his still bruised knuckles or the fact that he is still shaken badly by it all. He isn´t that different from Lee when it comes to being stubborn. At that he huffs out a little laugh but it quickly turns into a worried look because he feels that there might be something wrong. Not that he doesn´t love his kids but he isn´t really all that emotional when it concerns certain things like kissing bruises and cuts better. More practical than there mother. That thought almost makes him snarl. Their mother who by now has all but moved away for good and they know. They know that the change will be soon. It should be something they all should be happy about. That they made it thus far without ripping each others throats out over nothings and that the children are alright. At least he hopes that, god he hopes that because he isn´t sure if he can take any more. Lee doesn´t comment on it but he knows. He has to know from the looks he sometimes throws him but he never asks. He is a grown up after all. Ginny is not. 

“Are you sad?”

That throws him a little, because Ginny is a child and although he knows children are more prone to tell or ask the truth, he isn´t quite prepared for that question at all. He is stressed and bummed out but not sad. He feels like crawling out of his skin but sadness isn´t the emotion he feels right now. No. 

“No honey, I am not sad, why would you think that?”

Naturally he has to ask, lifts her up her feet and onto his arm with only a slight grimace that is due to the bruises. Her honest eyes stare at him.

“You look sad and Lee does, too.”

There is an twitch in his jaw and an certain ache because he cannot really fathom if Lee is sad or not because he hasn´t seen the man enough to be up to date what state of emotion Lee is in. Right now it is in the middle of the night and he is carrying his daughter up to her room after giving her a glass of milk in the hopes she will stray from the topic of who is sad and who isn´t after he bribes her with pancakes. He has no such luck because the next person out and about is Robert, rubbing his eyes, closely followed by Lee and that is because his alarm has gone off.   
Lee doesn´t look sad. He looks dead tired because he has had another double shift, helped Richard putting the final touches to the children s rooms and on top of it all he also has seen to his sister, looked after her for after Richard had kicked her out, fool that he was and is. Richard gives him one long lingering look before he grabs Robert by his other hand and guides him back to bed, tucking Ginny in again.

“Sleep, you two. Nobody is sad.”  
He has half a mind to tell Lee to get back into bed as well but Lee is stubborn and so he sits himself down at the kitchen table and smokes, drinking cold coffee from the day before with a grimace and tries his best not to look like death warmed over.

“Something wrong?”

He asks and in all other circumstances he would have found Lees voice sexy as hell but right about now he shakes his head.

“Ginny thinks you are sad. That I am sad.”

Lee just stares at him as if he suddenly has three heads a tail and is spitting fire, instead of sitting around in normal clothes with rumpled hair. Lee takes a pull from his cigarette and laughs. Richard blinks.

“I am sorry but what the hell is so funny about that observation?”

Richard all but yells at Lee but refrains from doing because he doesn´t want to wake the children again. 

“Nothing aside from the fucking fact that I should watch out now when I am feeling like shit because there are people around me that care. Wow, that came out harsher than I expected.”

He drops his head to his hands, tries to muffle the titter that rises ugly in his throat and yet he doesn´t look up when Richard moves around him and strokes his neck, wraps his arms around his waist, pressing their bodies as much together as is possible through the wood of the chair separating them from each other. 

“I don´t need coddling.”

Lee mutters and Richard laughs.

“No. I do.”

That makes Lee raise his head a little and turn his head to Richard who , to put it mildly looks haunted and Lee cannot blame him for that, knows all the stress the man has been exposed too but hell, he has tried so much make it go away. Well, he isn´t really good at the whole spilling your feelings thing, never has been and he cannot see Richard being like that either. Still, they have reached a breaking point. Both of them but as they are both stubborn neither really admits to it. 

“Is that so?”

Lee says quietly and rises, despite his tiredness, turning and suddenly it makes all sense. In a way the question Ginny asked makes him realize that they both look like shit and that this is it. That they cannot go on like that if they want to be happy, or even rested enough. So he does the first thing that comes to mind. He tucks at Richards hand and drag him to the bedroom, glaring at his alarm clock and pushes the snooze button aggressively before falling into bed and taking Richard down with him. Richard will deny the unmanly squeaking sound he makes for the rest of his existence, Lee will never forget it. 

“In that case, after I have had an hour or ten of sleep I will call in, tell my fucking employee that he will work alone for the next five days and that we will make a trip to my cousins Farm. Meanwhile you will stop looking like I would be a vision or tripping and pack bags for us and the kids. Then there can be codling, canoodling and...well..everything else that comes.”

Lee waggles his eyebrows and Richard laughs a bit, eyes on the younger man, a hand scrubbing through his unruly hair. In more quieter tones Lee promises that they will talk because they need to do that, that is long overdue but for now, they need to rest. Richard doesn´t really protest. In fact he is fine with that and he even lets it slide as the kids crawl into bed with them because Robert says Ginny has had a nightmare and he has to look after her, which leads to the conclusion that Ginny wanted to hide in the biggest bed available. He wishes he would have a camera, though because the sight of Ginny snatching the blankets from Lee and Lee in turn nearly rolling out of bed and in turn nearly squishing Robert who draped himself in true octopus fashion over all of them and nobody knowing which leg or arm belongs to whom – well, he feels like this a big moment but then he falls asleep ten minutes later.


	12. Twelve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And on we go. Also, there is porn in here (or at least that is what I think it is) As always I hope you enjoy and feel free to let me know what you think <3

Maybe the universe had it out for them Richard muses and tries not to yawn or to throttle the grinning man in front of them when he climbs out of the car, the children already off to see real chickens and other animals. He gets it but he is still a bit cranky. A bit tired, even if the trip so far hasn´t really been that exhausting. Lee and him had taken turns driving and all had been good.  
Aaron, Lees cousin is annoyingly happy in the morning when they arrive and it grates a bit on Richards nerves. Lee looks to be just as annoyed, which only makes Aaron grin wider. That and the guy - well, he is chatty and relaxed but he talks a lot and they have had a long drive with children in the backseat of an overheated car and constantly there had been noise coming from somewhere.

“Man, you both look like shit.”

He says in lieu of a greeting and Richard slams the trunk shut with more force than strictly necessary while Lee just chuckles and draws the man into a hug.

“Long time no see, but I am glad you decided to drop by and bring your husband.”

Lee flushes at that and Richard freezes a bit. Not enough for Lee to notice but the next words, he notices despite being dead tired. 

“We are not yet married.”

Richard says calm and low, maybe without noticing his slip and now Lee freezes on the spot because of the word _yet_ that holds such significance all of a sudden, makes his head spin and spin until he feels faint. That could be the lack of sleep and Aaron, well he gives them a sly look Lee absolutely hates. 

“Well, good on you nobody took a pledge, then.”

He cackles, Richards face reddens up to the tips of his ears in remembrance as to why they are still tired and that it has not really to as much as the drive as they both want Aaron to believe.

_  
They should be packing the last things they need when they get away for a holiday, they need to check if they have all the papers, the first aid kit in the trunk of the car – all the little things. It is Lees fault, Richard thinks dazedly, for shaking his ass in an entirely teasing way a minute ago and squeaking in a falsetto voice that they also could do naughty things. Richard thinks, he isn´t to blame at all, or not much at least._

_“We have to be quiet.”_

_Richard hisses into Lees ear, mouth mapping the skin of Lees tattoo and Lee tries to be quiet, but he cannot muster it for the life of him- not when Richard has two fingers up to the knuckle inside of him and pressed against his prostate. Not when Richard has been keeping on doing that for the last ten minutes , just to make him pay for whatever he might have done wrong. He wrecks his brain as to what that might be and if he should file it away under the things that deserve to be done wrong all over again, curling his toes when Richards fingers speed up._

_“Quiet!”_

_Richard hisses again and his face is set in a stern expression although his shaking body betrays him a bit. Lee has become good at that, reading the other man like a book and nudging him out of his comfort zone step by step. Richard might as well have noticed that but at least they were both on the same page here. A moan tears itself from his throat and Richard stares at him for a moment before slapping a hand over his mouth. Lee bites into his palm on instinct and the older man freezes for a moment.  
Lee wants to say something, anything but he doesn´t get the chance because Richard scrambles away with a sigh, heartfelt and deep, erection bobbing in front of him while he loosens his fingers._

_“You can´t listen, can you?”_

_Lee just stares at him in question, his whole body humming._

_“I am not really the listening type, you know.”_

_Richards eyes glower in the semi darkness of the room, one of his scattered ties dangling from his fingers._

_“Maybe I should make you listen.”_

_Lee grins broader, he was never one to stop himself diving headfirst into a shallow lake nor will he ever be._

_“Bet you would love that, sweet cheeks.”_

__

“I don´t like the look on your face.”

Aaron says halfway through clearing off the table and Lee stops loading the cutlery into the dishwasher while Richard and the kids take a well deserved nap. He will join them after helping Aaron, he had to promise Ginny that, high and holy with a pinky swear. The memory makes him smile a bit until the words Aaron said sink in.

“What?”

He asks tonelessly. 

“As if you are doing something wrong. As if you are not good enough.”   
He wants to yell at his cousin, wants to tell him that he isn´t thinking that but he cannot muster it, his thoughts straying. 

_  
“You really do need to learn when to shut up, don´t you?”_

_For a moment Lee blinks and then he stares, thinking of different times and a different face and he hates himself for it, hates that he feels like being punched and his arousal flags a bit._

_“Lee?”_

_Richard lets the tie sink down to the floor, is back on the bed after two steps. He doesn´t know and frankly Lee doesn´t want him to know every little thing of his wretched past._

_“I..did I say something wrong?”_

_Lee says nothing, just shakes his head and pulls Richard close. Richard gets that, he gets that sometimes the other man doesn´t want to talk, just like him and so he nestles close, soaks in their shared body heat and links their fingers together. Lee smiles._

_“It´s stupid.”_

_Lee says in that way of his that suggest he doesn´t want to talk about it any longer and Richard wants to protest, wants to be a bit angry but cannot muster the strength of it when Lee slides down his body like a goddamned snaked and swallows him down in one go. The shout that leaves his throat is only muffled by the pillow he bites into._

__

“Yo! Earth to Lee, you still in there?”

Lee blinks at Aaron, than back to the fork in his hand, placing it in the dishwasher and crossing his arms over his chest. His cousin rolls his eyes.

“It´s true then, isn´t it?”

Lee blinks again and he is pretty sure his mouth is hanging open a bit without something coming out. 

“What?”

Aaron groans. 

“That whole being in love and going at it like rabbits thingy. He fucked you stupid, didn´t he? ”

It is immature but he throws the soaking dishcloth at the insanely laughing man, missing by a mile and to his utter horror hitting Richard straight in the face. There is silence for a few moments. 

“Normally I prefer my beverages hot.”

Lee tries not to laugh, he really does. 

__

_“That´s unfair.”_

_Richard mumbles, coming down from his orgasm, trying not to grimace at the stiffness in his legs._

_“What?”_

_Lee tries for innocent and Richard glowers at him through hooded eyes. They know well enough what they, well – haven´t talked about._

_“Alone for that I should leave you hanging there, but I am a gentleman.”_

_He says and before Lee can come back with a witty reply Richard has his hand around the other mans erection, stroking it at a punishing speed, relishing in every muffled sound Lee makes, every tremble of his bones. It doesn´t take long for him to come and he slumps down onto Richard with his full weight, making them both groan in unison._

_“Not moving again. Ever.”_

_Richard snorts._

__

“Oh fine, laugh all you want. As long as I will get a decent tea now the kids are asleep.”

He groans a bit, looking every bit as tired as Lee feels himself and Aaron isn´t helping at all when he snorts and mumbles something about lovesick fools making him want to retch while brewing tea none the less. Lee sizes the opportunity to sit down next to Richard with a slight wince that thankfully goes unnoticed by his cousin. There is a god, after all he thinks drily. 

“You good?”

Lee asks and it is a question that holds many answers so Richard has to think a bit about it but in the end he smiles and nods. He is good, he is with the person he loves and who loves him back, they have room to breathe, they are good. 

“Yes.”

He says and accepts the cup of tea with a smile that makes Lees heart flutter in his chest until Aaron gives him a look.

“You should get a bit of sleep. There are a lot of things you need to know if you stay for a while”

Richard notices the look the other men share but doesn´t say anything until an hour later when they are alone in a room next to the one where the children are in.

“Care to tell me what that is about?”

A can of worms, Lee thinks bitterly but says nothing for a long minute and sighs, flopping down on the bed next to where Richard stands.

“Aaron isn´t really subtle, is he?”

He wishes for a cigarette anew but he knows he ran out a few miles before they arrived.

“No, not his strong suit.”

Lee swallows again and he only looks up when Richard places a hand on his shoulder, the gesture so odd but comforting he wants to cry and laugh at the same time but only pulls Richard down to sit beside him.

“You cannot weasel out your way of answering it by sex this time Pace, just so you know.”

Despite everything Lees mouth twitches into a smile. 

“I don´t do that.”

It´s a lie, they both know but Richard only wrinkles his nose and motions for Lee to continue.

“What he was trying to say is that my father is in town. Apparently he has business to attend to and Aaron forgot to mention that tidbit of information to me until we where already halfway on our way.”

He sighs. Richard just stares ahead for a second and Lee gets so nervous he feels like an teenager again before Richard finally speaks. 

“Does that mean I have to ask him for your hand in marriage?”

There is nothing Lee has to say to that and so he just laughs, soon joined by the other man.


	13. Thirteen

Children and drunks are the only ones always telling the truth without fearing the consequences. It´s simple – the first don´t really know that a lie is easier and the second don´t really care about it anymore. It´s an odd thought but Richard thinks it none the less trying to straighten out his tie for the twentieth time in front of the mirror of the room he shares with Lee for the next two weeks. 

It is ridiculous, really. There is no need to feel nervous or as if he has done something wrong, no matter what some people say and how much he fears that he will wake up and everything that has happened will turn out to be some really fucked up dream. He chuckles and wishes for Whiskey all of sudden but quenches the urge down vehemently. 

Lee doesn´t wear a suit. Not that he doesn´t own one, but it is kind of his rebellious streak that wants to come out and play once in a while and when Aaron had casually suggested that they could got out for dinner Lee had just looked at his cousin for about two minutes before the man had caved and told him that the elder Pace would be coming , too. Aaron always meddled in things not really his business but he also was the kind of guy you couldn´t really stay mad at.

“So, are you ready to go to prom with me?”

The tone is light but Richard notices how tense the other man is, giving him a look in the mirror. 

“I think we are far past that stage, don´t you , darling?”  
There is something in that sentence that makes Lees fingers twitch, wanting to blow the whole thing off, panic fluttering in his chest.

“Are we?”

Truth is, he doesn´t know where they are standing right now, despite telling each other that they love the other, that they have a future. Lee always waits for the bubble to burst and maybe that is something he should really work on but refuses to do because he is stubborn , which he also doesn´t acknowledge.

“Yeah, I think so. Figured you aren´t the type for flowers anyway.”

At that some of the tension drains from Lee and he laughs. Richard is glad for that but his nerves aren´t any better. They cannot run, shouldn´t run from something they both want but there is that voice in his head that tells him that Lee could grow tired of the kids, would find something else. 

“You done murdering your tie?”

Richard just blinks, staring at his poor innocent tie as if it might be the cause for all his problems and not just an overrated piece of clothing. In the end he rips his off and throws it into a corner and out of his sight.

“I hate the bloody things anyway.”

That makes Lee pause. 

“So why do you wear them?”

It was an easy enough question and certainly not asked with anything behind it but it still threw him for a loop, sending him back through space and time.

__

_His mother is a woman that doesn´t talk much but when she does she makes sure he listens. He is fifteen , old enough to understand when people are mad at him or disappointed. Richard has always known how to read people quite well in his life so far and maybe that makes him a boy that doesn´t really think so childlike any more._

_“I know you don´t want to visit your aunt, Richard.”_

_His mother says, going through his wardrobe with a frown. Doesn´t like is not a strong enough word for the dislike he feels for the woman. It´s not something she says or does – if it were only that, it would be fine with him. It´s the way she looks at his father. He isn´t daft and he also knows that his mother, despite never saying a word about it, knows it and it makes him mad. Still, he is just a child and he knows that his opinion on the matter doesn´t really count for any of them. His mother comes up with the suit he hates and the matching tie for it._

_He would rather go in jeans and a T-Shirt but his father would just stare at him and make him go to change, telling him that it was rude to go to a family dinner dressed like a slop._

_“Can´t you just say I am sick or something.”_

_She says nothing for a while, just contemplates the suit in her one hand, tie in the other._

_“Now, that would be a lie, wouldn´t it, son?”_

_He wants to say something about lying, something witty and sharp that will guarantee that he will stay grounded for a week if he is lucky. Two if luck isn´t on his side. So he grits his teeth and swallows the words burning on his tongue._

_“Yes , mother.”_

_She gives him a bright smile that doesn´t really reach her eyes and pats him awkwardly on the head before making her way to the door._

_“Good, now finish getting dressed and try to look like you enjoy yourself for once, it wouldn´t hurt to smile.”_

_With that she is off and he stares at the suit and the tie again, feeling like he wants to throw up. It´s like the suit and the tie are a costume, something he is being pressed into and something he never wants to wear again but yet he does every single time because he cannot stand the thought of his parents being disappointed in him. Chris doesn´t understand that -not because he is dumb, no – just because he is his brother and he doesn´t want to. Speak of the devil , the door to his room opens and Chris all but strolls in, giving him a nasty look, cigarette dangling from his lip.  
The illusion is ruined though when he gets out a can of air freshener to chase the smell of tobacco away._

_“Aren´t you the rebel.”_

_He doesn´t even know where it comes from – the bitterness and the snark but Chris just raises his eyebrow at him and takes a pull from his smoke, flopping down on his bed after closing the door behind himself._

_“Says the One in the monkey suit not being able to bind a tie, Richie?”_

_He grimaces._

_“Don´t call me that you wanker.”_

_Even if it is true. He doesn´t really know how to bind his tie right because he loads the fucking thing anyways. Chris is already dressed and ready to go but doesn´t rise to the bait laid out for him. He is annoying like that._

_“Come here then before you strangle yourself with the bloody thing.”_

_He lets Chris bind his tie, fix the buttons on his shirt he missed and tries not to flush. Chris says nothing but pinches his cheek after he is done with it , which in turn is the the thing that makes him curse and chase his laughing brother down the stairs, all troubles forgotten for the moment._

__

“Rich?”

He blinks, coming back to the present and focusing his attention on Lee who looks at him in slight worry.

“Everything okay? You zoned out there for a moment.”

He must have done so he thinks with a rueful shake of his head, raking a hand through his hair.

“Yes I am fine. Just decided against the tie, you know.”

If Lee finds that strange he doesn´t comment on it further and he is glad for that. 

“We aren´t taking the kids with us, are we?”

It isn´t a smooth change of subject but Lee lets that slide as well, just crossing his arms in front of his chest. Like himself the man has some defense mechanisms that are easy to spot when you get to know him.

“No. I don´t think that will be wise – not..well.”

Lee sighs, staring out the window, car keys dangling in his hand. They should have waited a little longer but Richard had insisted that they took Lees father up on the invite to dinner – like ripping off a band aid.

“I get it.”

He says. And he gets it now, he really does. Lee just blinks at him, a relieved smile crossing his features. There were things that could wait, like awkward introductions because he doesn´t want his children feel like him back at those family dinners.

__

_His aunt is well into the second bottle of port by the way her eyes are glazed over when she opens her front door, dressed to the nines. She is all bright smiles and hugs, although the hug she gives his father is not as short as the ones Chris or his mother receive. He receives a pat on the head to the hug as a bonus that makes his brother want to titter but refusing it in the last moment, remembering manners that had been drilled into them both since birth._

_“Oh what a lovely tie on a lovely young man. Brings out the color of your eyes. You look so much like your father already – the ladies will love you when you grow up.”_

_His father clears his throat but his mother says nothing while he flushes to the tips of his ears._

_“What´s that I am smelling there?”_

_His father asks and she leads them to the dining room like every time they are there. It is always the same and like every other time they eat and chat and Chris gets a kick from him under the table when he tries to make a rude comment just to get a rise out of anyone at the table. The tie around his neck feels like it is choking him already._

_A few hours later he is on his way to the loo when he hears voices from the kitchen and stops despite knowing it is rude to eavesdrop. First he thinks it is his mother talking to his father but on the second try he knows it is his aunt._

_“What do you mean by that? You won´t come around anymore? What did I do now to piss her off ?”_

_Although he cannot see his father from his place behind the wall separating the kitchen and the hall leading to the bathroom he can nearly hear him scoff._

_“You are drunk Maggie, get your shit together.”_

_She laughs, a bitter high pitched thing that makes Richard shudder but he cannot stop listening regardless._

_“I am not the one that needs to get their shit together and we both know it. Just look at your boys, already groomed to become your clones. Just what the world needs.”_

_It stings more than it should but Richard continues to listen, sucking in a breath once his father speaks in a way he never has heard leaving the mans lips before._

_“Now you listen up, you silly cow. Whatever happened between you and me was before your sister and me got married and you leave my family out of it. Drink yourself to death if you must or drown in your bloody pity but do not say anything about my sons or my wife you don´t know.”_

_She says nothing to it for a while and he hears an ugly sob, followed by laughter._

_“Oh I wouldn´t say such a thing if I wouldn´t know better. Tell me one thing though before you leave. Is that the life you wanted?”_

_Richard knows he really should not listen to what his father has to say to that but he does, fingers clenched in his tie._

_“No it isn´t but it is the life I got.”_

_They leave half an hour later, the car filled with tense silence but in the end they never talk about why the don´t visit his aunt anymore and like everything, Richard accepts it like the good son he tries to be._

__

“You ready to go then?”

Lee says, bouncing on his feet and nervous as hell. He looks adorable trying to hide it beneath his tough exterior.

“Ready as I´ll ever be.”

Richard hears himself say, knows his children are taken care of and will be in bed by the time they come back from their dinner, however that may work out. And he is fine with that.


	14. Fourteen

_  
He tries to run away for the first time in his life when he is twelve years old. He doesn´t know what brings it on, if it is the tone of his father, if it is the defeated look of his mother or something else entirely. He just knows that he needs to go. Keep running until he is out of breath and out of money. It takes his father exactly three hours to find him and all but drag him back into the car to drive him home. He doesn´t say a word at first, not for the next hour or the next day._

_In fact he doesn´t say anything at all and that is what bothers Lee the most._

__

“Penny for your thoughts?”

Richard asks but he knows already that Lee dreads the moment the doors to the Diner open and will see his father, dreads that Aaron didn´t come with them after all. He can understand it to a degree but it doesn´t help his own nerves in the slightest. He feels like a kid again and he hates it. 

“Nah, everything is fine.”

Lee says and stares straight ahead before nearly shrieking when there is a knock on the window. Richard can´t blame him for the reaction, his own heart hammering in his chest. 

“Come on , I already reserved a table and it will look a bit strange when I am sitting alone at a table for four people, don´t you think.”

Lee is going to murder Aaron, when he doesn´t die of a heart attack first. Not that he wouldn´t have known that something had been planned the way the other man had twitched. Richard gives him another look and he wrenches the car door on the drivers side open with more force than necessary, stretching. The funny thing is, there is not one single word he wants to say to his father or knows to say despite all the things he thought he might say.

There is no yelling, no accusing stare – nothing at all but silence that stretches.

“I presume that Aaron wasn´t all honest when he told me you wanted to meet up while we both were in the same state for once?”

Yes, he was going to murder Aaron. The hand in the small of his back is warm and reassuring so he lets those thoughts slide for now, shaking his head. His fathers gaze wanders between the two men and he shakes hands with Richard who still has his other hand around Lee in a gesture that leaves no doubt for speculations. The older mans thoughts fleeting fly to his ex wife and his family and what those people would think of his life choices before he curses inside his head again for thinking something like that.

They don´t exchange more words or pleasantries before sitting down inside the small restaurant. It looks for all the world like a business meeting and Lee snorts while inspecting the Menu in front of him as if he never has seen one before in his life. So what if he acts a little bit childish.

“I think this is a bad idea.”

He hears himself say and puts the menu down again, fighting the instinct to flee. His father levels them both with a steely gaze, eyes so much like his own that he wonders if he will ever look like that when he gets older but discards that thought as well in favor for staring at the cutlery in front of him. 

“So you still think I would hate you, yes?”  
His father is always calm and collected, just like he remembers from the childhood long since gone and life left behind. Richard says nothing because he feels like this isn´t his place, isn´t his right but he wants to , so badly. Lee just squeezes his thigh under the table, softly but with a sure grip. Richard nearly spills the wine he has ordered a few minutes ago only to pass the time. 

“No.”

Lee says and really looks as his father for the first time since they sat down. He isn´t a child anymore, not the twelve year old boy that was terrified of his future.

“I just think that you don´t give a flying fuck about me and that Aaron should damn well know to mind his own business by now.”

It´s like watching a tennis match for Richard who feels the stares that statement has gained from the people around them in earshot. He knows Lee well enough by now to know to spot when the other man wants to provoke someone and something inside him is curious if he will succeed. 

“You know Aaron. He was never good at listening – just like you.”

Well, it seems to run in the family, that provoking of people, Richard thinks before he covers the snort that wants to rise with a cough and tries to smile at the man sitting opposite him, seizing him up. God, he remembers why he hated the visits to his in laws now. 

“Oh don´t hold back Mr.Armitage – there is no harm in finding it amusing when a pissing contest between a parent and a child takes place.”

The waitress passing their table nearly drops the tray she is juggling. 

__

_“Why is he doing it?”_

_That night in bed Lee has his eyes closed, pretending to sleep, pretending not to sense his parents standing in the doorway to his bedroom._

_“I don´t know.”_

_His father says in a tired voice and he squeezes his eyes closer, hoping they will just walk away.  
There is no sound for a moment but then there are shuffling feet and a hand on his shoulder. From the seize of it, it has to be his fathers hand, just resting on his shoulder, solid and warm but unmoving. The contact only lasts for a few moments and then it is gone, the door to his bedroom closing._

__

They make it through the first course until his father excuses himself to the bathroom and it still feels like some sort of business meeting, like there is something that needs to be said but nobody dares to open their mouth. Richard clears his throat. 

“Yes?”

Lee asks, now looking at him like some of the kids he teaches do when they don´t have an answer to a question they have been asked. 

“You think that I am difficult. Immature, don´t you?”

It´s not really a question but something Lee thinks he knows and for some reason that angers Richard. 

“Why would I think that? I don´t know shit about what happened between you two, do I? Not really anyways.”

Anger bubbles low in his stomach and he forces it down with another gulp of wine, only relaxing when Lee moves closer, brushing a kiss against his temple in way of apology and damn that man for succeeding in making Richards anger dissolve into nothingness. The scraping of chair legs makes them move back into their own space, reminding them both that they are not alone.

“You are right.”

Lee blinks, fork poised mid air , bite of steak sitting a few inches away from his lips. 

“I am?”

His father nods for a moment, from the looks of it trying to get the right words in order. He never was a man that talked much and Lee was always fine with that, accepted it. Another nod that makes him lay down his fork with a clutter.

“Yes. For a long time I did not harbor the fondest of feelings for you.”

At least the man was blunt, Richard thought with a wince, swallowing his bite of Steak. Not that he could really enjoy it with all the tension building up between the other men.

“Don´t look at me like that , son.”

It´s the first time in a while that Lee has been referred to as son and so he blinks, biting back the sarcastic comment that wants to leave his mouth.

“Like what?”

He says instead, ordering against everything that comes close to diner etiquette as far as he is concerned a bottle of Tequila for their table. The waitress doesn´t even blink. 

“Like you want to stab me with that fork in your hand before having heard all of it. That is your problem, Lee. You never heard all of it.”

There is a certain amount of pain interlaced in those words and Richard takes his time to look at the older man to make certain he isn´t misjudged. He has had his fair share of that in his life so far , can understand it to a certain point.

“I was a child. Even when I left.”

Something else is said with that as well. Something that is almost a question , almost a _why?_ but never makes it past Lee´s lips. From his own experience in life Richard knows the moments things cannot go back to what they once were, that it is too late.   
It makes the corners of his mouth twitch a little but neither Lee nor his father sees it and he is thankful for that at least.

“You weren´t Lee. Not really. I missed most of your childhood and you have every right to hate me for that at least but what happened between your mother and me, that has nothing to do with you or your sister. No matter how much you try to tell yourself that.”

And suddenly Lee just _knows_ without even needing to say something to that. The truth behind those words. Years too late to undo what has been done and transpired between them but he gets it now. Suddenly he feels at peace with it so much he doesn´t know if he wants to laugh or cry.

“Since we got that out of the way, how about dessert? Or has Aaron been lying about the pie as well?”

He tries for a light mood and he is thankful that Richard leans in and grumbles about that Aaron better had been telling the truth about the pie. 

“So. You won´t be staying long? Not even for the carnival?Aaron told me that you have brought kids but maybe he was..”

Richard clears his throat.

“No. He wasn´t lying but I do not wish to discuss my children with a stranger, through another stranger – no offense.”

“None taken.”

Lees father says and watches Lee stand excusing himself to the bathroom. Richard feels kind of like stuck in a time loop but doesn´t utter the comment. 

“My apologies. It must be quite awkward for you to be dragged into all of this. I also heard that you had a run in with my daughter.”

There is the tiniest frown forming on the mans face but Richard only nods, eyeing the still unopened Tequila with renewed longing. 

“Yes. I had the pleasure of meeting your daughter.”

Much to Richards surprise the other man laughs, eyes crinkling just the way his sons do too.

“Oh please, you don´t need to be that polite to me – Aaron is quite talkative about things he gets to hear, I guess sometimes a little too much but he grows on you, sort of.”

Richard doubts that but he doesn´t say so although it must show on his face, judging from the chuckle thrown his way that is soon replaced with a somber smile 

“I am not saying that I am the father of the year and I have never been that – nor do I wish to be that now. It cost me a lot to know that my own son and me will be nothing more than estranged friends on a good day - and I bet even you can see that but I learned to live with that. We both did. Still, he is my son and he will always be my child. I will always worry about him but I do not hate him for his choices in life. That is the only thing I truly wish to share with you and that I wish you luck.”

The man is perceptive, Richard has to give him that. When Lee returns the waitress comes to their table with the pie and smiles at them while Lee sits down. 

“No Darling, not for me.”

His father says with regret that is not only for the piece of pie he asks for to take with him, telling them both that he still has business to attend to, paying for his portion of the check and leaving a tip for the woman trying her damnedest to keep the smile plastered on her face. 

“Lee.”

Lee looks up at his father and the hand on his shoulder is warm and heavy but it is gone after a few seconds and a few minutes later Richard and him sit alone at the table, the pie in front of them all but mocking with its heavenly smell.

“Tequila?”

Richard says and Lee grins, shaking his head with a laugh. 

“Did he say something to you?”

Richard gives the man at his side a patient loving smile. 

“Nothing that I didn´t already knew.”


	15. Fifthteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys :) I know it´s been a long time so thank you for still following this . I had a few rough weeks and months but I am better now ^^ So until next time with our lovely boys <3

It´s a funny feeling, being in love like a Teenager again and yet have the heavy burdens of adulthood under your belt. They both know and sometimes Lee thinks it shows in the way he acts and he tries to repress it as much as he can. He tries to be open, he really does but he cannot for the life of him change who he is. He tries to tell himself that Richard understands, that he would have left otherwise.   
That happens on his darker days even when they are bright and sunny, just not as warm anymore. Richard smacks him with a towel and he nearly drops the chopping knife he is holding in Aarons kitchen. 

It´s a bubble they are living in right now for a few happy days before their life has them back. There are many things to consider, really there are and he doesn´t know if they are ready to face it. No, he doesn´t know if _he_ is ready to face them. 

“Stop thinking. We still need to celebrate that your father didn´t skin me alive.”

Lee snorts. His father would have done many thinks if Richard wouldn´t have been to his liking but not that. So he tells the other man who just shakes his head.

“You know, you should have said something along the lines of being my knight in shining Armour and all that.”

Lee snorts again, shoving the chopping board aside. He wouldn´t need to help with the preparing for tomorrows lunch but he feels restless and his fingers itch, so he wants to do _something._ Something that will not scare the children practically buzzing like bees around them in the kitchen because Aaron had given them something that contained a little too much sugar to be good for children that should be asleep. His lips twitch when Ginny tries to climb Richard like a three and Richard eyes the decorative frying pan near Lees head a little to longingly, clearly thinking about Aaron while plucking the tittering girl of his waist and trying to usher her to the bathroom where he left Aaron to deal with Robert. 

Robert who made it really clear that it was not necessary to brush ones teeth. Ever again. It´s the first time that Lee sees the children rebel and he is sure it´s some sort of test the universe puts them through when the boy suddenly begins wailing for his mother.   
It´s also the first time since they got together that he sees Richard utterly lost and he wonders if that what Richard felt like before they both had the courage to act on their feelings. 

Lost at sea.

He also wonders if that was what his father had felt in the Restaurant or in general when it came to him. With a sigh he trails behind the other man who is trying to talk to his son through the closed bathroom door and tries not to panic. He is losing it, Lee can tell by the way he starts to tremble slightly , which also upsets the girl. 

“Robert, this is quite enough. Open the door and come out at once.”

Robert is hardly to hear above his screaming and Lee just blinks when he finally understands _what_ the boy actually screams.

“No! 

Aaron who hoovers near them flinches as it comes to light why the boy is upset. 

“You told my son _what_?” 

“Look, it was.. I am not good with kids at all times in the day and it kind of slipped.”

Lee understands that. He understands that sometimes some people are dumb fucks who don´t know what to say and what to tell and everything in between. Hell, really he wouldn´t even blame Richard if he would get that frying pan and beat his stupid cousin over the head with it repetitively because Aaron had lost his nerve and told the poor boy in the bathroom that Lee wouldn´t want children anyway. Clearly that had upset the boy and clearly Lee would need a bit to understand what that exactly means, the impact he seems to already have on this children. 

With a sigh he rakes his hands through his hair, leveling a murderous gaze at his cousin. The only reason they came here had been to avoid exactly things like these but it seems that sometimes a break simply isn´t allowed.

“Hey buddy – uncle Aaron is stupid. Course I want you around. Would I ever promise a ride on my motorcycle to someone I don´t like?”

Richard meanwhile looks , with Ginny in tow as if he is about to have a heart attack or some kind of insane laughing flash. Lee doesn´t blame him for a second and is glad as all hell when Robert finally opens the bathroom door. He looks like a mess. His hair sticks up at odd angles, he has toothpaste smeared across his entire face and apparently lost one sock.

“Promise?”

The boy tries and Lee just smiles at him with the biggest smile he can muster at that point in time and space, chancing a glance over his shoulder to Richard. 

“Promise”

He says when Richard says nothing and he sighs in relief once Robert is safely tucked away in his arms and his cries have come down to little sniffles. Two hours later Ginny also is sound asleep and that leaves time to talk. Time to talk is a demon they both know, but they need it. More than ever apparently.

Once it all settles down they are both left alone with their thoughts and everything that is hovering in between. They both know it needs to be addressed and that they both are shit at that somehow. Lee isn´t that good with words and the whole thing is uncomfortable. He doesn´t want to run and he doesn´t want to hide. He gives another snort before he hauls Aaron away so they can talk alone. It feels like they are young and restless again but before he can utter one word Richard appears in the doorway.

 

“I think what Lee wants to say is that we thank you for your hospitality but we will leave in the morning.”

And Lee? He is more in love with Richard than ever even if he cannot show it right now.


	16. Sixteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys :D I am back , so to speak. I know it has been much longer than I promised or myself have anticipated but that is life *sighs* I do hope you still like to read this story and as always feel free to let me know what you think. I also hope this will be a good year for all of you lovely people if it isn´t already :D

__

_“Lee, all I am saying is – I really love you – I just..”_

_Lee looks at Gabriel with bloodshot eyes and a quivering lip. He doesn´t want to hear what the man has to say because he knows what will come, has always known that it will end like that. End like something that never should have started._

_“Just go.”_

_He wants to throw something besides words at the other man because he thinks that the man has no right to look so sad. Not when HE is the tone breaking Lee´s heart into tiny little shreds because of ambitions. Not that he would blame the other man. Gabriel always wanted to make it big somewhere, had dreams that just didn´t include him or a same sex relationship that would raise questions or hinder him climbing the ladder to success._

_“Well, if you have nothing else to say..”_

_Leave it to Gabriel to make him feel bad on top of it._

_“No, I got nothing else to say.”_

_It´s the last Lee hopes to see of the man ever again.  
_

Once they are back home, things are normal. Or as normal as they are. Richard is getting a tad frustrated , being the one who is sitting at home and that they are hardly scraping by these days. Well, it wasn´t always sunshine and roses in real life. He snorts even as he hears it in his head, trying to find out if the cheese he wants to put on Roberts sandwich is still edible. Robert himself seems to think it is not, the way his nose is scrunched up while his sister just rolls her eyes at the boy. Something she has picked up from Lee, no doubt. Not that Richard will mention that towards Lee, ever.

There is a certain tenseness between them since they came back from visiting the farm and all that happened there and it kills Richard a bit that they don´t talk about it. Not that they both like talking but he had been under the impression that they were going somewhere so who could blame him that he was confused. It must have to do something with that damn invitation. It came in the mail two days ago and since there are holidays and Richard hasn´t got much work to do, being the kind of teacher who works so much that the work he would have had over the holidays is done. 

He wants to kick himself for it but refrains so , especially once he hears the front door slam shut. Without further ado he abandons what he is doing (much to the unseen relief of his son)

“Okay, lovelies, up to your rooms.”

He says in the tone that leaves no doubt that it won´t bode well if Ginny rolls her eyes at him, so she takes Robert by the hand and they toddle up the stairs looking back worried. Goodness how Richard hates that but he knows that something is up and he is done just taking it, even from the one person he loves more in the world than a lot of things or people for that matter.

Lee looks thunderous and it doesn´t take much for Richard to guess that it hasn´t to do anything with the Chevy he is fixing at the moment. Still, he doesn´t pounce first, gives himself time to think about things. With keen eyes he examines Lee and how he inspects the contents of the fridge.

“The cheese is rancid.”

Lee says if nothing else in the world would matter and well, that does make Richard downright growls at the man.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

He yells, even if he really doesn´t want to. Lee stays utterly calm. 

“I could ask you the same, Rich. I don´t know what I might have done..”

Richard interrupts him.

“Bullshit. You know what I am talking about.”

He rounds on Lee, all but runs into the living room to retrieve the innocent looking slip of paper that made a certain tension rise up. Not that they have been relaxed much lately. And he hates every minute of that, because he knows they are normally different than that. Lee stares at the invitation with thinly veiled disgust and rage.

“I am not going there.”

Richard raises his eyebrows, scanning the piece of paper in his hands. 

“It says here that you and your family are invited.”  
Sometimes people say things before they think, Richard knows that. Lee knows that. They have been to known to do stupid things once in a while. Still the next words that are thrown at the older man sting.

“What´s your point Richard?”

The blood in his veins seemingly turns to ice, even if he doesn´t know exactly why and how something that should have started as a conversation between consenting adults turned into – well _that_

Lee blinks once, twice before he closes his eyes, fingers reaching out to touch Richards arm but the other man flinches back as if stung and it makes Lee swallow the things he wants to say because, yeah he knows that they are overheard.

__

_“Lee.”_

_Gabriel says on the phone, voice just like back in the day not one single word of venom or anything else. Figures he went and got into politics, the bastard. Lee snorts, dares all of the people around him at the shop to say anything at all. Nobody does though because they all value their life a little too much._

_“What do you want? I am not coming. I will not attend your fundraiser.”_

_There is a sight over the line._

_“I feared you would say that but you can bring your...partner.”_

_Somehow that makes it even worse for Lee._

_“No.”_

_He hangs up before a response can come over the line. So he is stubborn but Gabriel is past and the past means just that._

__

The present is another thing that is happening right before his very eyes, a present in which Richard gets dressed and tells Ginny and Robert that he has to shop groceries and like he left a man of his past no choice to get another word in, the man of his present and future has no intention of doing the same for him. He doesn´t blame Richard, really. It has been a slip of tongue but it shouldn´t have happened. And to top it all there are children looking at him like he is some sort of monster. Robert doesn´t say anything, not even once Richard has left with a promise of candy for them and that he will be back soon. 

It is Ginny who settles next to him in the kitchen ,feet still dangling in the air from a chair to high but her face is so grown up that Lee wants to flinch.

“You don´t have to pretend that everything is okay.”

She says and he chokes on the Whiskey he has sneaked into a coffee cup but out of reach from children s hands. He only coughs twice.

“What?”

He manages after a moment. Twenty minutes have passed and he is worried, really worried for different reasons.

“I know that you and Dad fought. I am not stupid. Robert doesn´t understand , though.”

At that he raises an eyebrow and she in turn rolls her eyes at him. She must have picked that up from him, he notices with something between awe and worry. 

“And why is that?”

Lee isn´t sure he wants to know the answer to _that_ but anything at all is better than the worry he feels that he fucked up this thing with Richard. The one good thing that came across him since forever. 

“He is a _boy_ ”

He doesn´t know why, but he laughs until his eyes water and he has to turn around to face the sink because the last thing he wants to do is to break down and cry in front of a child he more or less wants to adopt and sees as his own since god knows how long already. He chuckles humorlessly.

“Yeah, sometimes boys aren´t as clever as they think they are.”

The voice from the doorway is almost chilling and dry as sand.

“If that isn´t a true word. Ginny, go to your room will you? Look after your brother. Boring grown up stuff ahead and all that.”

Her face scrunches up and it is clear as day that she doesn´t want to follow her fathers orders but in the end she does, because she wants some of the candy that has been promised after all. Once they are alone Lee opens his mouth but Richard holds up his hand.

“Don´t. Don´t say you are sorry for something you meant. We are not a family, not in the sense that invitation probably suggests , so it was a tad..well I overreacted – a little bit and..”

Lee stops him, pulls him close and into his arms. The hug is too tight, almost painful.

“But I am sorry for putting that look on your face Rich.”

He says quietly after a minute or ten, because he really , really cannot for the life of him muster to say anything at all for a period of time after an argument. He has never been good at that anyways.   
Richard steps back after a moment, looks him up and down.

“Care to elaborate , since we are both not sorry and all – what that has been about?”

He sighs. Naturally Richard also isn´t a person to let that slide. He himself wouldn´t either if he would be completely honest with himself 

“That invitation is from Gabriel Fuller.”  
At the mention of the name alone, Richard nearly drops the things he has been trying to put into the fridge after coming home. Apparently he has been shopping as well. 

“The politician?”

Lee just nods, draining the last of his non coffee he had abandoned a few minutes prior.

“The very same.”

It´s like dragging some unwilling child into math class Richard thinks, trying to be patient. There has to be more to it.

“He has called. He has emailed me. He wants to make amends.”

Oh Richard understands. Gabriel Fuller isn´t a bad guy from what he read. Lives the white picket fence life, wife, kids. Nothing like they

“And you don´t.”

The ringing of the doorbell cuts Lees answer short and before any of them can react, Robert opens. 

“Hello there, I am – uh -I am looking for a friend of mine. Tall and well- most likely covered in grease?”

Robert giggles before remembering his manners.

“You must mean Lee because my father is a teacher.”

Lee is behind the boy in the blink of an eye, one arm around him, as if he were some kind of shield.  
He would recognize that voice anywhere and it is Richards calm hand alone that stops him from doing something stupid. 

“Robert, haven´t we talked about speaking to strangers or opening the door?”

Robert looks guilty but Richard only sighs. 

“Oh but I am not a stranger.”

The man says with a smile. Kind green eyes look at him, hair much like his own and he wears what must be a very expensive suit. His voice when he talks to the man in front of him is not warmer than a day in November.

“I am afraid to me you are, sir and Lee hasn´t introduced many friends of his to me yet. ”

The man in front of him flinches.

“I guess I had that coming.”

Lee clears his throat, trying to relax his vocal chords.

“Gabriel. This is Richard. Richard this is Gabriel who left me after he decided that being gay wasn´t his thing. He did so with a note, fifty dollars worth of a dinner and some sweet words, that were just ..well -sweet. Now he came to grovel if I am not mistaken.”

Richard has to admit that he admires the man still standing on the porch, hands in his pockets that his voice doesn´t crack when he speaks. 

“No. I didn´t come to grovel. I came because I wanted to invite you and your family to dinner. I know how things were left they were ..well not good.”

Lee snorts again. Richard gives him a look that is kind of displeased. 

“You think so Gabriel?”

Richard , ever the voice of reason invites the man in before they can draw more attention and wonders if the day can get worse.


	17. Seventeen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys :) Still slow at updating I am afraid but I still love the boys very much and I hope you still enjoy reading <3 Lots of love :)

Gabriel Fuller isn´t a jerk, which makes it much worse for Richard to hate the man he wants to hate just because Lee looks like he wants to throttle the guy.  
He should be on Lees side, as a good and loving person but then again he also is a teacher, which gives him , well – sort of a responsibility, or so he thinks at least.

Lee still looks like he is about to bite the mans head off for good.

“Why don´t you two sit down while I fetch us something to drink.”

It´s a lame excuse, Richard knows and from the looks of it Lee will have to say something about that to him, later on – something that isn´t suited for children at all. He cringes and forgoes the wine in favor of the hard stuff, not even pretending to look for glasses that are small.

He takes his time, filling them and mixing Vodka Tonics for them – more alcohol in them than he would ever admit to drinking mid day but after all it is a occasion to break open a bottle for a reason. He just got that feeling. He strains to hear what the other men say in the living room.

Like most of his plans, it goes all very well until he _actually_ registers what Lee is saying.

“You know, what the worst part is, Gabe? I still love you.”

He shouldn´t be jealous, really. He should be pleased that Lee finds it in his heart to love other people, just like he will always love his wife to a certain degree.  
In theory all is well and fine. In theory that is. 

“Mr.Fuller?”

The man looks at him, a pain stricken look on his face. Richard knows that look all too well. It is the look of someone that cannot give a person that means a lot to them what they desire and yet keeps coming back for more punishment. It is the look his wife must have endured in those last dreadful months of their marriage. He cringes when he thinks of it. 

“Oh thank you. Look, I don´t..I wouldn´t have come if I would have known.. that..well – that there are children.”

Lee snorts but empties one of the glasses in Richards hand without grimacing just after he stands. Apparently he cannot sit still. Richard knows Lee, knows the sights of quiet rage in the other man – how his jaw ticks just before he is about to do something incredibly stupid. 

Like, for example – punch a well known politician in the face in their living room. He doesn´t, though. He stands still and tall, his back ramrod straight and for a moment he images Lightning to strike Gabriel Fuller down.

“Lee, I didn´t....”

The man squirms, takes a large gulp of his drink and coughs. Richard pats him on the back until he can breath again. That would be the icing on the cake, a celebrity, dying in their home. Richard snorts.  
Lee isn´t nearly as much amused.

“You never do, Gabriel. I wonder you climbed up as far as you did on the career ladder but I guess some people have just all the luck.“

At that, Fuller flinches as if struck.

„Can you please not quote my father.?“

Lee looks downright sardonic. 

„And why, pray tell , shouldn´t I?“

Richard has to give it to the man – he doesn´t scream although he looks as if he is about to rip his hair out. One by one.

“Lee. I came here because I wanted to make things right. I know you may not want to hear it like the thick headed ox you sometimes are but hell won´t open and swallow me. I just..”

If possible Lees whole demeanor gets an ounce or ten colder.

“Oh I know what you _just_ want. It´s not _just_ about amends, is it?”

Now Richard isn´t a nosy man but his interest in the things unfolding right before his eyes spikes immensely until he hears something clatter upstairs. For a moment he feels horrendous that he has forgotten about the kids and by the looks of it, so does Lee. Neither of them speaks but Richard is the one to set his glass down and pat Lee reassuringly on the shoulder. 

Anything to get out of that room because he doesn´t want to be in the middle of something that he might be interested in but still isn´t something he should meddle with.  
Every step he takes hurts a little but he knows he has to do that and that at the end of the day Lee will come back to him.

To _them_. 

Lee, meanwhile tries to get his raging emotions under control. Sure, he will always love the man in front of him but not like Richard. He realizes it with a start because once upon a time there would have been no way in the world to make his attention waver from the man he could care less about right now.  
It kind of hurts but he guesses that love always does to a certain point. He only turns his full attention back to Gabriel who rakes a hand through his hair, also standing.  
It has something from and old time Western , the Ones Lee loved so much as a boy and the irony  
isn´t really lost on him either. 

“You should know me better than that, Gabriel. I would never tell , no matter what people would pay me.”

It´s the first time in years that Lee sees the mans facade slip and the boy he knows from way back when they both were nothing but children comes to the forth. There are certain things you could do with a single word, or a picture. Lee hadn´t been surprised when some sleezy reporter came to his shop, wanted to know if he were a friend of the rising star in the Senate.

“What did you say?”

Some things never changed about a person, it seemed. Inside Gabriel Fuller still feared what people might think of him and it still makes Lee mad.

“You still pretend to me my friend. My _brother_ after asking shit like that?”

Oh god, how Lee wishes for a smoke right now. Still, they aren´t children anymore, never will be again and they have nothing in common, maybe never had – even if the little voice in Lee´s head tells him it is not only that. 

“Sit down.”

He says to the pale faced man in front of him, trying to ignore the ticking in his jaw and also pretending that he doesn´t see Richard lurking at the top of the stairs, willing to jump in any second. Maybe Lee has never loved him more like in that moment. 

“I am sitting.”

Gabriel says and Lee runs a hand over his face, trying to will down the fondness he still feels and will ever quite quit.

“I threw the bastard out and told him to bother someone else, not a hard working mechanic.”

Lee shrugs at the gasp that elicits from the man sitting behind him.

“I may have thrown a wrench after him because he unnerved me but I haven´t said a word. So if that is all you wanted to know, drink up and leave. I got a family to tend to.”

Gabriel Fuller isn´t a jerk – but he is a man that knows when a battle is lost. So he just drinks what is left in his glass, clasps Lee on the shoulder much in a way Richard did but the feeling isn´t the same. 

“I still would love to see you at the fundraiser.”

Is the last thing he says , leaving an invitation on the table where they normally only leave the mail that gets thrown out. Oh the irony is strong today.

Richard doesn´t come down, not even after the front door closes loud enough that the intruder is gone.

Lee can understand that, knows Richard as well as the older man knows him and makes his way up the stairs until he spies Richard with his back to him, seemingly reading to the children out of some book. 

“You know, it might help holding the book not upside down Rich.”

There is a smile in his voice, even as he captures Richards hand in his own, the grip too tight to give comfort but reassuring all the same.

“You know, Dad hates Politicians.”

Robert helpfully supplies and Lee laughs.

“Is that so?”

Richard feels his face flame.

“Yes, he said they are all slimy fat assed buggers not knowing when to stop.”

“Robert!”

The boy tries to hide behind his sister, who in turn rolls her eyes, not understanding in the slightest what the big deal is, because, yes Richard might have said that on his way up the stairs.

“It´s good your dad is a teacher then, isn´t it.”

And with that all thoughts of lost love vanish from their minds, at least for the moment.


	18. Eighteen

They could move. Maybe it is time for a change. Another change in another town, maybe another country, but Lee doesn´t want to. He doesn´t want to hide, doesn´t want to even think about it. 

Hell, he has never backed down anyways – not at least that he remembers. 

“Okay, what´s eating you?”

Lee whips his head around, wrench in hand, he looks at his newest employee. Not that he has anything against the man, he just wants to brood alone for a while, get his head straight. That alone makes him snort for no reason at all.

“None of your business.”

He hates the way it comes out of his mouth. So much hatred and venom for a simple enough question, for god´s sake, the man could sue him. Giving a sigh that is more than heartfelt.

“Sorry, Cole. I just...got a bad day.”

Which is the understatement of the century. He knows logically that the man in front of him is a stranger, which makes it so goddamn easy to talk to him. It´s like a curse or something, because Cole just looks at him, eyes crinkling at the corners.

“I figured as much boss, just wanted to make sure it wasn´t the engine of that Chevy making you wanting to question your faith or something like that.”

He cannot help it, he barks out a laugh until his lungs start to hurt. Truth is, he doesn´t feel like laughing, not since the day that Gabriel Fuller came into their lives and something just _changed_. It was subtle but it happened anyways. 

“It´s nothing.”

He hears himself say and he doesn´t believe himself once he hears it come out of his treacherous mouth. Cole seems to think so, too. The man says nothing, just keeps looking at him like he wants to say something but keeps it in. Barely.

“If you say so. It´s just that look you have on your face, well – I know that look.”

And just like that Lee is hook line and sinker into a conversation he never wanted to have but apparently needs to have before he gets batshit crazy. 

“Oh?”

He tries to concentrate on the car in front of him but decides to stop what he had been doing before the owner of said car will come back and skin him alive if something goes wrong with his beloved vehicle. The one thing Lee knows that hasn´t changed is his knowledge of a man coming into his shop who loves his car.

“Yeah. It´s the look I had when I found out that my marriage is way beyond saving.”

Again, Lee laughs but he feels his throat tighten.

“I am not married.”

Yet again his mouth is faster than his brain. It seems to have become a regular occurrence for him.

“Shame that. I wonder why he hasn´t put a ring on you yet, if you don´t mind me saying.”

Lee nearly chokes on his own spit.

“I do mind. Let´s just forget we had this conversation and go back to work.”

Cole just nods but he still looks like he wants to say something and just as before barely refrains from doing so.

__

_“I am not stalling Richard!”_

_Richard is unimpressed to say the least. He knows when Lee is stalling and when not, when he is being lied to. He is, after all, still a teacher, even though he is still looking for a career change. It has put a strain between them – among other things._

_Children weren´t pets, he had found himself yelling at the one person he loved so much when the fever of his daughter refused to go down after a two days and Lee had just looked at him and asked if that was the solution to the problem at hand. Which it hadn´t been. A night run to the nearest pharmacy had been but still, there was tension between them._

_Maybe it comes from the fact that they don´t know each other as well as they thought and claim. Maybe it is something else._

_“Come on! It cannot be that hard to put on a suit, for fucks sake! We´re just going to a fundraiser and not an execution.”_

_Naturally, Ginny overhears her father and gives him a stern look which in turn drowns out Lees response._

__

That night, when Lee comes home from work, Richard is already waiting for him in the kitchen. The children have long since gone to bed and the house seems eerily quiet. For a silly moment Lee thinks that some kind of creepy clown will jump at him and that he will do nothing about it because he is tired.

Tired of many things he cannot put a finger on just yet. He notices that Richard doesn´t seem to fare much better than him and he knows exactly why. He just doesn´t want to take the whole blame onto his shoulders.

“Who died?”

He tries for a joke.

“My patience.”

Richard fires back. Tonight doesn´t seem to be night for jokes. 

“Alright then, should I sit down for this?”

Richard still has that hard look on his face and this time around it doesn´t fill Lee up with the first urges to throw himself at the man like it has done so many times before. Lee gives himself a minute to take everything in, not just Richard but also the glass sitting beside him and the cigarette dangling from between his fingers.

“I think that would be for the best, don´t you?”

Now Lee feels anger flare up inside him.

“Now just wait a minute, you think this is my fault?”

The older man just barks out a laugh that is more ..well – a bark than everything else that could be described a laugh.

“I haven´t said anything yet. Come down from your high horse you fucker.”

Lee gapes at him, opens and closes his mouth but nothing is willing to come out.  
 __

_“Why are we here again?”_

_It´s the sixth time Lee asks Richard that and Richard refrains from rolling his eyes just barely._

_“We were invited and there is free food. That were your own words Lee, so please do not ask me that again or I will have to hand headphones into the back.”_

_“They are about to argue.”_

_Robert says in all his child like wisdom to his sister because he knows that headphones mean that his father wants to say words that aren´t meant for little ears – or so at least Richard had tried to explain it to his children. The words he had chosen in his explanation for Lee had been less minced._

_Lee turns and tries to make a joke but he stops because Richard looks at him like a man ready to commit a crime, so he says nothing. Well, almost._

_“I just...”_

_He stops himself, drums his fingers on the dashboard. This will be fun, he thinks sarcastically._

__

“What happened Richard?”

He means to say it loud and harsh but it comes out meek and near silent, yet Richard hears every word.

“I would say nothing happened but that would be a lie so I go with I don´t know. I don´t know why you cling to a past that makes you so unhappy. I don´t know why on earth you need to be upset with everybody around you who questions if you like dick or cunt. I just wish I knew how to do something about it before it gets out of hand.”

The silence in the room is deafening for all but ten seconds.

“Wow, you really go there, don´t you?”

Richard gives an irritated huff.

“ _I_ go there? I am not the One who growled at everyone at god damn fundraiser Lee because they commented on how _cute_ we are!”

Lee counts to ten. 

“I am not an attraction in the zoo, Rich and I am certainly not cute!”

He even goes to making air quotes and regrets it a moment later because Richard looks at him, really looks at him.

“That´s not what I am saying!”

Okay, they are definitely yelling now.

__

_“What is wrong with you?”_

_Lee tries not to scowl because there is press all over the place but it just isn´t his scene. It never was. The problem he has nowadays he just doesn´t quite know where his scene is._

_“Nothing”_

_He hisses, trying to hold on for dear life onto his champagne and not letting the kids out of sight too much. There isn´t really anything that could happen to them in this environment but he needs an excuse not to look at Richard who basically can read him like a book._

_“Nothing.”_

_Richard repeats but is silent for the sake of it although they both know better._

__

“What is it you are saying then?”

Lee wants to know because he is tired and angry at the world. Basically he knows that he doesn´t need to run, that Richard loves him for who he is, no matter what gender. Basing love on gender alone is something Lee never got anyway. He just is insecure about a lot of things at times and until now he thought that Richard understood that without words. 

He was wrong.

“I am saying, we need to talk”


	19. nineteen

Talking had never been Lee´s strong suit , no matter what everybody else was thinking or kept on telling him. No – and he knew, knew from that look in Richards eyes that nothing good would come off of it this time either.

“Well, go on , talk then.”

Richard gave a sigh and it wasn´t a sound of anger or something alike -no, Lee knew that sound as well. It was the sound of defeat. 

“Lee.”

It´s a tone that always set Lee on edge, a tone he always hated and would never like but he also knew that it was a tone that got his attention and so apparently knew Richard.

“I know my name, go on.”

He doesn´t really know why he does it, doesn´t know why he keeps on insisting to go the hard way – he would argue that is how he was brought up but that was a lie and it wouldn´t be fair to the people who raised him, no matter how complicated it all was and is.

“Now you´re being childish.”

He knew he was but he also was stubborn and he wanted to prove a point, or so he thought.

“Look, I know I wasn´t on my best behavior on that god damn fundraiser and I sure as hell pissed some people off but I don´t get why it makes you so angry. It has nothing to do with you.”

And that was true. It hadn´t to do with Richard or the children he secretly already called his own in his head already. It had to do with the past. They haven´t really had a big fight yet – nothing that hadn´t been resolved in a day or two, maybe even before the day had passed and they had forgotten about everything altogether. 

This time around, though – this time around it had the air of something different, something that could become bigger.

“You sound like a stupid kid Lee and that isn´t you. I know it isn´t and it will never be but I cannot do this – not again.”

And now Lee is confused, rightly so, Richard thinks but he shakes his head free of old memories, of old habits but in the past it was him that had been running away, him that had hidden and maybe -no scratch that, lived a lie. Lee wants to say something, anything but his mouth opens and closes around air and he just stares at Richard.

“Are you trying to tell me I should leave? That it is over?”

Because that is all he hears over the pounding in his head, hopes that he will wake up from what is clearly a nightmare. It has to be. Anger never became him, anger never lead to anything for either of them but yet here they are, not even that far apart and still it feels like miles.

“No. I am not saying anything like that. I am saying that I am done. Done running, done hiding and if you cannot do the same and want to run away – be my guest. I got a life that is completely different from yours, I have known that..”

He stops, cannot start again because he doesn´t really know what exactly he wants to say to the man in front of him. The man he loves – maybe that is why it hurts so much.

“I understand.”

And he does. All of a sudden he does understand what Richard is telling him, what he wants to say to him and it makes him crack up. Richard stares at him like he has gone off the deep end and boy does it feel like he is drowning all the same. 

“No you do not, you bloody fool!”

Gone is the kindness, the calmness shredded – and he doesn´t even know why but he is glad about it, really fucking glad about it. 

“Huh?”

Lee musters, shaken to the core, not knowing left from right or why all of this is happening now, just right this moment when he thought he had it all figured out.

Richard is trembling, eyes on some point behind Lees head.

“I don´t get it either, you know. Why do you refuse to be happy?”

It is the last thing he expects and the next thing he doesn´t expect is that his mouth seems to open on it´s own accord.

“Happiness doesn´t last Richard. It never does and never will.”

Richard is a man of many words, knows his facts and figures and yet here they are , standing still in the middle of a room in a house he wants so desperately call home it almost hurts. He knows a lot about homes, about living in one and about losing one. 

“And who exactly told you that?”

Lee feels deflated.

“Life.”

He answers and Richard just shakes his head.

“Well, fuck Life.”

Lee just blinks at Richard, not knowing what to do or to say – and bless Richard for being the mature one when he just cannot muster up the strength to be it himself. He clears his throat but Richard just holds up his hand, grasps the phone in his hand to make a call – Lee doesn´t get all of it but the words that it would be an emergency and if Sarah could please come over. Hell , if Richard would put more smolder into his voice the younger man is sure that Sarah would drop dead before telling him that, yes , she is available and that it isn´t a problem at all for her to come over shortly.

“Not here, not now. In an hour we leave – I am calling in a favor for you here, so for the love of all that is holy, try and be smart for once today, okay?”

Sure, Lee would say, if he could and if there wouldn´t be a torrent of emotions whirling throughout his entire system, so the only thing he can do is finally looking straight at Richard.

“I thought there would be no more running.”

Richard merely smiles.

“It isn´t. It´s dinner – far away from prying eyes and little ears.”

Ever the teacher the younger man thinks, ever the more reasonable one. So that is why an hour later they find themselves on an abandoned baseball field, sandwiches from a street vendor in between them.

“So.”

Richard begins.

So never held so much meaning Lee thinks and closes his eyes once memories keep floating back to him


End file.
